Correct SSH Directory permissions

If you are trying to setup Public-Key Authentication and see this error in the logs:

Authentication refused: bad ownership or modes for directory

Your problem is related to permissions and/or ownership.

The following commands on the user account you are trying to setup should fix the problem:

chmod go-w ~/
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

If that doesn’t work make sure you check, denyhosts, pam system-auth config and your sshd_config.