Why SSH Still Asks for a Password After Adding a Key
Adding a public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys is the first step toward password‑less login, but the SSH daemon can still fall back to password authentication for a handful of reasons. The most common culprit is a mis‑configured PubkeyAuthentication setting in /etc/ssh/sshd_config or a permissions problem that causes the server to ignore the key file.
1. Verify the Key Is Accepted by the Server
# On the client
ssh -vvv user@host
The -vvv flag prints the entire authentication dance. Look for lines like: