Restart SSH daemon from web GUI?

[XIII]

As of this morning I can no longer SSH into my GT-AX6000 router, but ping still returns data and the web GUI also still works.

(How) Can I restart the SSH daemon from the web GUI without rebooting the entire router?

 

[bennor]

Stupid question time, but have you tried disabling SSH in the router GUI (applying the change) then re-enabling it (applying the change)?

 

[XIII]

Don't think that's a stupid question (because I considered the same ).

However, I was too afraid to loose all access if the router would get stuck on that, so instead I tried changing it from "LAN only" to "LAN + WAN", hoping that would still restart the SSH daemon. No luck...

Tried your suggestion after all. It took very long to disable SSH (seemed stuck on "Applying settings"); re-enabling SSH went fast, but still no luck...

 

[bennor]

What about telnet? Can you access the router via telnet? If so you might be able to restart the SSH service that way (service ssh restart).

Does the SSH client (or it's log) return a specific message as to why it couldn't connect to the router?

Are you running any addon scripts?

You may have to suck it up and just reboot.

PS: And check the router system log if you haven't already to see what it shows when you try accessing the router via SSH. It may show a cause why the connection fails. Example system log successful SSH connection to a RT-AX86U Pro:

Jan 12 06:04:31 dropbear[1140]: Child connection from 192.168.1.100:63081
Jan 12 06:04:38 dropbear[1140]: Password auth succeeded for 'admin' from 192.168.1.100:63081
Jan 12 06:04:47 HTTPD: [LOGIN][http][Web] successed (192.168.1.100)

And an example system log of a failed login (using wrong user name and password):

Jan 12 06:08:49 dropbear[2143]: Child connection from 192.168.1.100:63171
Jan 12 06:08:55 dropbear[2143]: Login attempt for nonexistent user from 192.168.1.100:63171
....
Jan 12 06:11:21 dropbear[2476]: Child connection from 192.168.1.100:58790
Jan 12 06:11:27 dropbear[2476]: Bad password attempt for 'admin' from 192.168.1.100:58790

 

[XIII]

I think telnet has been removed years ago?

I log in using a private/public key pair, so no typos in my password.

This is the only dropbear log I see:

Jan 12 15:03:54 dropbear[19055]: Child connection from 192.168.1.139:60800

That's indeed the IP address of the Mac I'm trying to SSH from, but the weird port 60800 is a mystery to me...

Out of curiosity I tried to SSH from my iPhone (which also fails); again the IP address is correct and the IP address is a completely random(?) port...

I'll probably reboot the router after work.

 

[bennor]

I log in using a private/public key pair, so no typos in my password.

Maybe something is corrupted router side on that private/public key pair. Try a new private/public key pair if possible. Or maybe, under the SSH option in the router GUI, enable Allow Password Login if not enabled and try logging in using the router's admin password.

 

[jacklul]

This is the only dropbear log I see:

Jan 12 15:03:54 dropbear[19055]: Child connection from 192.168.1.139:60800

That's indeed the IP address of the Mac I'm trying to SSH from, but the weird port 60800 is a mystery to me...

Client port will always be semi-random.

 

[XIII]

Rebooted from the web GUI; the web GUI said the reboot completed, but the web GUI did no longer respond and the router did no longer reply to ping commands.

Turned the router off and on; I can now SSH into the router again, but the router does no longer see my SSD drive connected via USB...

Will investigate further after dinner.

 

[XIII]

WTF? These are exactly the kind of errors for which I replaced my USB drive by an SSD...

zsh: locking failed for /root/.data/zsh/history: read-only file system: reading anyway

zoxide: could not write to database

Caused by:
    0: could not create file: /tmp/home/root/.data/zoxide/tmp_qXaXdH9Bu7As
    1: Read-only file system (os error 30)

 

[XIII]

 Mon Jan 12 21:10:41 MEZ 2026 Probing 'ext4' on device /dev/sda1
 Running disk check with command 'e2fsck -p' on /dev/sda1
 ssd: recovering journal
 ssd: clean, 67252/15630336 files, 10896801/62512923 blocks
 Mon Jan 12 21:10:42 MEZ 2026 Disk check done on /dev/sda1

Are there other checks I can run?