I was working on trying to grant a ‘regular’ user SSH access in OPNsense last night. After banging my head against the wall for some time (partially because the official documentation is outdated), I was able to figure it out.

(Do however note that this is different than how you grant a user SSH access in pfSense, where the steps do align with the outdated documentation.)

Here’s how you do it:

• Go to System -> Access -> Groups
  • Create a new group called ‘remote_access’
• Go to System -> Access -> Users
  • Create a new user with a valid shell (i.e. not nologin), and make sure to add a valid SSH key and to add the user to the group ‘remote_access’
• Go to System -> Administration and navigate to the ‘Secure Shell’ Section.
  • Under ‘Login Group’, select ‘wheel,remote_access’

This of course assumes that you have SSH already enabled and remotely accessible. However, assuming this is true, you should now be able to login using the newly created user.

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