How do I restart sshd daemon on Linux or Unix?

[Guy Fawkes]

SSH is an acronym for Secure Shell. It is an Internet communication protocol that allows log into Linux or Unix bases systems and runs commands. One can exchange files using a secure channel over an insecure network such as the Internet. OpenSSH is developed as part of the OpenBSD project and by default installed on modern Linux and *BSD family of operating systems including macOS. This page shows how to restart sshd daemon using the command line option.

Procedure to restart sshd daemon

1. Open the terminal application
2. Edit the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config using a text editor such as vi or nano.
3. Restart sshd service on an Ubuntu or Debian Linux using the following command:
4. sudo systemctl restart ssh.service
5. RHEL/CentOS Linux user run:
6. sudo systemctl restart sshd.service

The command to restart sshd varies from one variant of Linux or Unix distro to another. Hence, we will see all other commands below. Please note that you must login as root user to restart services. Either use the su command or sudo command.

How to restart the SSHD daemon in Debian / Ubuntu Linux

Type the systemctl command:

# sudo systemctl restart ssh

Are you an older version of Debian/Ubuntu Linux (pre systemd)? Try the service command:

#service ssh restart
## OR ##
#service sshd restart

CentOS / RHEL / Fedora / Redhat Linux Restart SSHD server

# sudo systemctl restart sshd

Restating the SSHD daemon on FreeBSD Unix

# /etc/rc.d/sshd restart

or

# service sshd restart

OpenBSD Unix restart the SSHD service

# /etc/rc.d/sshd restart

or

# /etc/rc.d/sshd restart

Solaris 10/11 command

# svcadm disable ssh
# svcadm enable ssh

Solaris version 9 and older users, try:

# /etc/init.d/sshd stop
# /etc/init.d/sshd start

AIX Unix command

# stopsrc -s sshd
# startsrc -s sshd

HP-UX Unix command

To restart sshd daemon on HP-UX, first stop it and again start it as follows:

# /sbin/init.d/secsh stop
# /sbin/init.d/secsh start