Make ssh servers work on Bitnami Debian VMs

Bitnami provides VM and cloud images of popular software that can be used to deliver services or solutions. They are easy to get going because they support formats. After installing Apache Guacamole, I needed to connect to the VM's ssh server. Bitnami built their Apache Guacamole on Debian and I found that making it run required a few additional steps. If I tried to start up the ssh server, it would give me this error message. 

Condition check resulted in OpenBSD secure shell server being skipped

The main thing to understand is that access to ssh is not really required. Connections via the host console is enough for simple jobs. The application itself provides a wealth of settings to work with. 

If an ssh access is required, follow the following steps on the host console to make ssh work on the Apache Guacamole Bitnami VM.

• Connect to the host console. This will depend on how the Bitnami VM was installed and what platform it was installed on. Login into the console using the username and password displayed or the information that was changed the during installation.
• Once logged in, generate new host keys using this command 

sudo ssh-keygen -A

• Then make the run directory

sudo mkdir -p /var/run/sshd 

• Create a link for localtime in the directory

cd /var/run/sshd
sudo ln -s /etc/localtime localtime 

• Delete the 'lock' file preventing unintentionally running of the SSH server

sudo rm /etc/ssh/ssshd_not_to_be_run

• Test it with

sudo /usr/bin/sshd -T

If the screen fill with settings information, the SSH server is capable of running.

• Start the SSH service with

sudo systemctl start ssh

• Try and login from remote using bitnami credentials

Additional steps my be required to login using key-based login.