SSH keypair does not work, not password either when transfer domain

SYSTEM INFORMATION
OS type and version Ubuntu 24.04
Webmin version 2.202
Virtualmin version 7.30.4
Webserver version Latest apache
Related packages SUGGESTED

I try to transfer a domain to new server.
I have created a ssh keypair and copied the .pub to the remote server but for some reason it does not work:
I can use password and it works using the terminal
When I try using password for the transfer I get this

Failed to transfer server : Failed to contact Virtualmin on destination system : root@184.174.32.123’s password: Permission denied, please try again. root@184.174.32.123’s password: Permission denied, please try again. root@184.174.32.123’s password: root@184.174.32.123: Permission denied (publickey,password)

Do you need to enable ssh for the root account. By default root on Ubuntu does not have ssh access I believe.

No its no problem logging in via ssh client with root/passwd. But that does not work for transfer. And the keypair does not work either

I have absolutely NO idea if this would/should make a difference. This question is to satisfy my own curiosity.

Do you have jail kit enabled?

If it asks for a password when you try to login from the terminal, it means you haven’t configured key authentication correctly, somewhere. ssh won’t ask for a password if it can authenticate with a key (unless the private key is password protected, I don’t think you can use a password-protected key, though, so I’d try one without).

Also, I would not recommend using the root account for backups! There’s no reason to do that, and it’s very dangerous to have root passwords or root keys floating around on a bunch of servers. You’re just using the server as a place to put backup files, you don’t need root access for that!

Thanks Joe for insight. Somehow I have solved it and I will change and not use root. for the backups. But it still strange that it did not work. A fresh server with Ubuntu 24 and nothing else.

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