Show SSH Auth Policy Order

You need to see SSH authentication directives in file order, including Include and Match lines.

Command

grep -nE '^(Include|Match |PubkeyAuthentication|PasswordAuthentication|AuthenticationMethods|[[:space:]]+(PasswordAuthentication|AuthenticationMethods))' etc/ssh/sshd_config

Before you run this

System impact: Read-only. Output may expose users, paths, tokens, keys, IPs, process arguments, or log details.

When not to use it: Do not treat grep output as a full effective config on production systems; use sshd's config test tooling where available.

Expected output

Line-numbered Include, Match, and authentication directives from sshd_config.

System impact

Read-only, sensitive output. Nothing changes. The command prints line-numbered policy directives in the order sshd_config presents them.

Recovery / rollback: no state is changed.

When to use it

Use when SSH policy looks contradictory and you need to see whether later Match rules override global assumptions.

When not to use it

Do not treat grep output as a full effective config on production systems; use sshd's config test tooling where available.

Watch this command run

Command transcript

This sanitized transcript shows the commands and output shape without exposing host details.

demo@lab:~$

$ nl -ba etc/ssh/sshd_config

     1	Port 22
     2	PubkeyAuthentication yes
     3	PasswordAuthentication no
     4	KbdInteractiveAuthentication no
     5	AuthenticationMethods publickey
     6	AllowUsers alice deploy
     7	Include etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/*.conf
     8	Match Address 198.51.100.0/24
     9	    PasswordAuthentication yes
    10	    AuthenticationMethods publickey,password

2:PubkeyAuthentication yes
3:PasswordAuthentication no
5:AuthenticationMethods publickey
7:Include etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/*.conf
8:Match Address 198.51.100.0/24
9:    PasswordAuthentication yes
10:    AuthenticationMethods publickey,password

View commands shown

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