For security reasons it is not a good idea to permit ssh root direct login, it is better to login as another user, and then switch to root using the ‘su -’ comand, to do this, you need to disable root from login directly using ssh protocol, this will decrease the possibility of a hacker breaking your linux box, as now he will have to guess your user name and your password
Edit the file
/etc/ssh/sshd_config
vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
I strongly recommend you to open two logins if doing this from a remote connection, and never close one of them, in case you need to roll back the configuration
Next locate this line “PermitRootLogin yes” by entering this on your vi or vim editor
:/PermitRootLogin yes
and change it to this:
PermitRootLogin no
and save the file, with this:
/etc/init.d/ssh restart