If you want to use a password to access the SSH server, a solution for fixing the Permission denied error is to enable password login in the sshd_config file.

To do this, open the file in a text editor.  This example uses the nano editor:

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

In the file, find the PasswordAuthentication line and make sure it ends with yes.

Find the ChallengeResponseAuthentication option and disable it by adding no.

If lines are commented out, remove the hash sign # to uncomment them. Save the file and exit. Restart the SSH service by typing the following command:

sudo systemctl restart sshd