I'm wondering why this doesn't work 'out of the box', we have a /etc/init.d/ssh and it's active for the run levels we want. I've spent some time trying to trace this, without luck.

The standard hack is to put stuff in /etc/rc.local, so that's what I did in the end (service ssh start).

Great work!

SSH does not start automatically on Pinephone and Vollaphone 22. It may happen on more devices, I don't know.

To solve it I created this "thing" when I played with Pinephone.

Script enabledSSH.sh

#!/bin/bash
### Enable SSH at startup in UT ###
echo "#!/bin/bash" > startssh.sh
echo "### Iniciar SSH ###" >> startssh.sh
echo "exec service ssh start" >> startssh.sh
sudo chmod +x startssh.sh
sudo mount -o remount,rw /
sudo cp startssh.sh /etc/init.d/
sudo rm startssh.sh
sudo update-rc.d startssh.sh defaults
sudo reboot

Then execute:

bash enabledSSH.sh

P.S. Rerun only when changing channels.

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ service --status-all
...
  [ + ] apparmor
  [ + ] isc-dhcp-server
  [ - ] keyboard setup
  ...
  [ + ] network manager
  [ + ] networking
...
  [ - ] rc.local
...
  [ + ] ssh
  [ + ] udev
...

Although ssh is shown as an active here, I can't access UbuntuTouch 16.04 from my client.
ssh: connect to host 192.168.188.50 port 22: Connection refused

In the systemctl I found the ssh.socket with the following command. However, this ssh.socket is not executable.

$systemctl list-unit-files --type=socket
UNIT                              FILE STATE
...
ssh.socket                          enabled
...
systemd-networkd.socket            disabled
...

I need to run the sudo service ssh start command manually to get access via ssh.

I found the startup script for ssh.service under /lib/systemd/system and it already exists.
When I run the existing ssh.service command to enable it, I get the following error:

root@ubuntu-phablet:/lib/systemd/system# systemctl enable ssh.service
Synchronizing state of ssh.service with SysV init with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install...
Executing /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable ssh
update-rc.d: error: Device or resource busy
root@ubuntu-phablet:/lib/systemd/system# systemctl status ssh
Failed to get properties: No such interface ''

I see the problem in the following line:

update-rc.d: error: Device or resource busy

Is this service locked in UbuntuTouch? :frowning_face:
After the reboot I still get ssh stop/waiting from sudo status ssh. Am I missing something here?
A manual sudo service ssh start results in ssh start/running, process 7838.
Can someone confirm that the ssh service doesn't start automatically?

I'll try it now with cron job on boot, hopefully it works. But it's not such a clean solution.

( upstart works together with systemd > https://crunchify.com/systemd-upstart-respawn-process-linux-os/)

Is there a solution to turn ssh service on, while booting?

Hmm... if there is systemctl, then there has to be systemd, am I right? And if there is a systemd, then you can write a user service, which will run at boot.

If there is no systemd, then it is using upstart and you can make it run script on boot.

If everything fails try cron job on boot.

The same on Pixel 3a (OTA24)

$sudo systemctl enable ssh
Synchronizing state of ssh.service with SysV init with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install...
Executing /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable ssh
update-rc.d: error: Device or resource busy

Why is device or resource busy?

Maybe this is a issue with the port of VollaPhone22?

You can ask here : https://github.com/HelloVolla/ubuntu-touch-beta-tests/issues

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ netstat -tulnp
(Not all processes could be identified, non-owned process info
 will not be shown, you would have to be root to see it all.)
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State       PID/Program name
tcp        0      0 127.0.1.1:53            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -               
udp        0      0 127.0.1.1:53            0.0.0.0:*                           -               
udp        0      0 0.0.0.0:68              0.0.0.0:*                              -

After I start the ssh service manually the output is:

$sudo service ssh start

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ netstat -tulnp
(Not all processes could be identified, non-owned process info
 will not be shown, you would have to be root to see it all.)
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State       PID/Program name
tcp        0      0 127.0.1.1:53            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -               
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:22              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -               
tcp6       0      0 :::22                   :::*                    LISTEN      -               
udp        0      0 127.0.1.1:53            0.0.0.0:*                           -               
udp        0      0 0.0.0.0:68              0.0.0.0:*                           -

I get access via ssh, but the service is not starting on boot.
Yes, I use the VollaPhone22 with Ubuntu 16.04 (OTA-24).
In the next days, I get my new phone Pixel 3a. I go to install 20.04 and try this with my new phone. Maybe this is a issue with the port of VollaPhone22?
Thanks, I report then here my experience!

Is something else using the port 22? Does the netstat command work? - I don't have quick access to a Ubuntu Touch install at the moment so I don't know if that command is available.
netstat -tulnp

Is there a other solution or way to get access to the update-rc.d ?

systemctl enable ssh means to start the service at boot time. So if you reboot the phone after entering that the ssh server daemon would start.

But, you don't have restart the phone to start the ssh server daemon, you can just enter
systemctl start ssh

If you want to do that in one step you can enter
systemctl enable --now ssh