Yeah I was confused about the comment chain. I was thinking terminal login vs ssh. You’re right in my experience…root ssh requires user intervention for RHEL and friends and arch and debian.

Side note: did you mean to say “shot themselves in the root”? I love it either way.

On a new linux install or image I will always:

• Make new users(s)
• Setup new user to sudo
• Change ssh port
• Change new user to authenticate ssh via key+password
• Disable root ssh login

Ah fair enough, I know that’s the basis of a ton of distros. I lean towards RHEL so I’m not super fluent there.

Which ones? I’m asking because that isn’t true for cent, rocky, arch.