How can I access my Ubuntu phone over ssh?

Question

Whenever I try to run apt-get install openssh-server I get the following errors:

root@ubuntu-phablet:/home/hablet# apt-get install openssh-server
W: Not using locking for read only lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock
E: Unable to write to /var/cache/apt
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

Answer 1

With the official final release Ubuntu for Phones ships the "android-gadget-service" tool with which you can manage adb, mtp, USB tethering and ssh.

Connect your device via USB, enable Developer Mode in:

"System-Settings->About This Phone->Developer Mode"

...and run (from your PC, make sure to have the phone screen unlocked, else adb will refuse to let you in):

adb shell android-gadget-service enable ssh

Copy your public key to the Phone:

adb shell mkdir /home/phablet/.ssh
adb push ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub /home/phablet/.ssh/authorized_keys
adb shell chown -R phablet.phablet /home/phablet/.ssh
adb shell chmod 700 /home/phablet/.ssh
adb shell chmod 600 /home/phablet/.ssh/authorized_keys

Now you can look up your IP on the phone and use ssh to connect:

adb shell ip addr show wlan0|grep inet
ssh phablet@<IP from above command>

Answer 2

To activate ssh access entirely over wifi, without developer mode on the phone, without any special tooling on your computer and without using USB:

1. If you don't already have an ssh keypair, type ssh-keygen on your computer and follow the instructions to generate one.
2. Install the Terminal app on the phone from the App Store.

3. Open a Terminal and type (this is easier with the phone in a landscape orientation):

   sudo setprop persist.service.ssh true
   mkdir -pm700 ~/.ssh
   ip addr
   nc -l 1234 > ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
   

   (the last command will hang; this is expected)

4. Look for your phone's IP address in the Terminal as returned by the ip addr command above.

5. On your computer, type (replacing 192.0.2.1 with your phone's IP address from above):

   nc 192.0.2.1 1234 < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
   

   If successful, the last command on your phone's Terminal will now succeed.

6. On your computer, type (again replacing 192.0.2.1 with your phone's IP address from above):

   ssh [email protected]
   

7. If your phone's IP address changes, you will need to use ip addr in the Terminal app on your phone again and adjust your ssh command accordingly.

Answer 3

OpenSSH server is now (as of 13-Sep-2013) pre-loaded with Ubuntu Touch install. However, it is also disabled by default. You also don't want SSH operating from root.

---

You need to type the following, using a USB connection to the device:

adb shell
su - phablet
sudo tee /etc/init/ssh.override < /dev/null

To revert to disabled

echo "manual" | sudo tee /etc/init/ssh.override

---

UPDATE: (09-Mar-2014)

The answer above is no longer current.

• As of early March 2014, while the file /etc/init/ssh.override still exists, changing its contents does not allow SSH (actually the sshd daemon) to run on startup.

• The recent builds (tested for 226, but possibly earlier) now support a new meta-flag persist.service.ssh, to allow SSH (sshd daemon) to re-start on startup.

Get to command prompt (on device)

adb shell
su - phablet

Start SSH, and set flag

sudo service ssh start
sudo setprop persist.service.ssh true

Restart device

sudo reboot

The SSH daemon should auto-start

sudo service ssh status

---

To disable SSH auto-start, change the flag:

sudo setprop persist.service.ssh false

Answer 4

Try making it writable and reboot:

touch /userdata/.writable_image

Edit: When you build it use the --pending switch Updates to phablet-flash

Edit: System images now the recommended way to deploy and update Ubuntu Touch

Answer 5

Install Ubuntu SDK and click "Open SSH connection do the device" in the devices panel. Bonus: you won't resist to writing a new Scope...

Answer 6

I have just found a faster (quick and dirty) way (Attention: it is not secure!):

1) Install the terminal app and open it

2) switch to root

sudo su

(enter you screen lock password)

2) Enter the following commands:

echo "PasswordAuthentication yes" >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config
echo "AllowUsers phablet" >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config
/usr/sbin/sshd

Now your ssh server is running and it will accept your screen lock code as a password! Attention: it is very easy to brute-force now! Please change your settings immediately (now you can do it in a comfortable way, after you connect via ssh from you PC).

Since you run the sshd manually, the /etc/init/ssh.override file is not applied anymore...

So to connect from your PC:

ssh [email protected]

where x.x.x.x is an IP-address of your phone, which you can find by typing

ifconfig

in the terminal of your phone.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: it could be, that after update, sshd is failing to start because it cannot open host keys, then just regenerate them:

/usr/bin/ssh-keygen -A

If it fails because /var/run/sshd is missing, just create it:

mkdir /var/run/sshd
chmod 755 /var/run/sshd