An sshd_config snippet turning password authentication off and requiring publickey

Secure SSH on your first VPS before the bots find it

A step-by-step SSH hardening guide for a first VPS on the RHEL 10 family (AlmaLinux, Rocky, CentOS Stream). Key-only authentication, no root login, brute-force limits, a safe port move, and SELinux left enforcing, with every command shown and the lockout traps called out.

September 9, 2026 · 23 min · widnyana