Gl-mt6000, sftp stopped working, what is dropbear

Router
1

my sftp was working from FileZilla, with a file based key

my ssh still worked with same file based key

when sftp stopped working, i googled the results from logread -f, and it said dropbear does not support sftp, i need to install openssh-sftp-server

  1. where did dropbear come from? was it installed automatically during a firmware upgrade?

so I followed some AI instructions from google to stop and disable DropBear, and install OpenSSH and OpenSHH-Server.

Now I can’t ssh into the router, it does not accept my key file, and it does not accept my root pwd

i am still logged into the web interface (GL-inet) and also Luci.

  1. should i use luci > system > software to uninstall openssh-keygen and openssh-server and openssh-sftp-server and dropbear

then reboot, then re-install the 3 openssh software apps, and try my root pwd via ssh ?

  1. if that does not work, is my only option to do a factory reset?
  2. does luci have a way to launch a terminal to run commands thru the web interface? or is there a software app or plugin i can install to try that so i can get a shell access?

thanks in advance…

2

in web interface, System > Log, tab = System
I was able to find this:
Thu Apr 30 11:09:31 2026 auth.info sshd[7391]: Failed password for root from 10.0.0.2 port 62072 ssh2

Now I am installing luci-app-ttyd to try to get a terminal from the Luci web interface

3

thank the godz! the terminal showed up under Luci > Services > Terminal, and I was able to login as root using the pwd, so I know the pwd is good. Now I will look at the ssh configs to find out why i can’t login via ssh

4

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5

The dropbear is a cut down version of ssh that OpenWrt uses as default. I have found that scp -O works with dropbear, as is uses the original SCP protocol for file transfers instead of the SFTP protocol.

For OpenSSH, take a look at: /etc/ssh/sshd_config, as normally it is setup to not allow root logins. Look for the line: PermitRootLogin yes

6

thanks. i guess what I really wanted to know was: how did dropbear take over when i previously had openssh installed and working with filezilla? would a firmware update do that?

7

I was able to follow this recipe at OpenWRT,

to replace DropBear with OpenSSH, and install openssh-sftp-server, and now i can use filezilla to grab logs from the router. the wiki was helpful in how it copies the key files from DB to OSSH, and also enable the root login

8

Yes, a firmware update will always delete all installed packages and wipe the config of main applications as well.

9

that’s horrible. i wish the was a warning when the mt6000 prompts you to do an upgrade to the newest version

10

It's only the case for custom installed packages that are in conflict with the main features. Like an SSH replacement.

11

oh, is there a way to know which packages conflict, to be aware next time?