I want to be able to become www-data on my desktop machine so I can edit HTML files etc. directly without problems. So I have tried to set up a passwordless ssh login to www-data but I can't get it to work. Doing identical things to another login works perfectly.

Before using ssh-copy-id :-

chris$ ssh -l zelma chris zelma@chris's password: zelma@chris:~$ exit logout Connection to chris closed. chris$ ssh -l www-data chris www-data@chris's password: www-data@chris$ exit logout Connection to chris closed. chris$

Use ssh-copy-id to set up both logins:-

chris$ ssh-copy-id zelma@chris zelma@chris's password: Now try logging into the machine, with "ssh 'zelma@chris'", and check in:

.ssh/authorized_keys

to make sure we haven't added extra keys that you weren't expecting.

chris$ ssh-copy-id www-data@chris www-data@chris's password: Now try logging into the machine, with "ssh 'www-data@chris'", and check in:

.ssh/authorized_keys

to make sure we haven't added extra keys that you weren't expecting.

chris$

It works to 'zelma' but not to 'www-data' :-

chris$ ssh 'zelma@chris' zelma@chris:~$ exit logout Connection to chris closed. chris$ ssh 'www-data@chris' www-data@chris's password: www-data@chris$ exit logout Connection to chris closed. chris$

So there's something different about www-data but what is it? There's nothing special in the sshd_config file and I've completely removed both zelma's and www-data's ~/.ssh directories before starting the above.

Any ideas/suggestions anyone?