SSH default port not changing (Ubuntu 22.10 and later)

I am on Ubuntu 22.10 and I cannot change SSH default port. I have tried the following:

• Edited /etc/ssh/sshd_config, left the default #Port 22 line but added Port 1234 below it.

• Then added allow rule for it in UFW using the command:

  sudo ufw allow 1234
  

  which added:

  To	Action	From
  1234	ALLOW	Anywhere
  1234 (v6)	ALLOW	Anywhere (v6)

I then restarted the SSH service using 2 different methods (see start of block below), but I saw no change. Service status states it started listening on port 22 and to verify this I checked the listening ports and sure enough it's still 22.

$ sudo systemctl restart ssh
$ sudo service ssh restart
$ systemctl status ssh
ssh.service - OpenBSD Secure Shell server
 Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/ssh.service; disabled; preset: enabled)
Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/ssh.service.d
         └─00-socket.conf
 Active: active (running) since Mon 2022-11-07 10:12:52 AEDT; 5s ago
TriggeredBy: ● ssh.socket
   Docs: man:sshd(8)
         man:sshd_config(5)
Process: 54858 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/sshd -t (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 54859 (sshd)
  Tasks: 1 (limit: 1020)
 Memory: 1.3M
    CPU: 13ms
 CGroup: /system.slice/ssh.service
         └─54859 "sshd: /usr/sbin/sshd -D [listener] 0 of 10-100 startups"

Nov 07 10:12:52 webserver.abc.com systemd[1]: Starting OpenBSD Secure Shell server...
Nov 07 10:12:52 webserver.abc.com sshd[54859]: Server listening on :: port 22.
Nov 07 10:12:52 webserver.abc.com systemd[1]: Started OpenBSD Secure Shell server.

ss -tlpn

State         Recv-Q        Send-Q               Local Address:Port   Peer Address:Port Process
LISTEN        0             4096                             *:22                *:*    -

Am I missing a step or doing something wrong? I do note the service status has preset: enabled, but multiple guides I've read haven't mentioned anything about disabling anything like presets.

EDIT: Thanks matigo for reminding me, but sshd.service doesn't seem to be installed yet. I have the config files and can remote in just fine, not sure if I just don't understand and I need to install sshd for it to take over the default SSH operations?

SSHd now uses socket-based activation Ubuntu 22.10 or later. Read more about this change being discussed here.

TLDR: The /etc/ssh/sshd_config are unused, now that I read the comments in full I found:

# Port and ListenAddress options are not used when sshd is socket-activated,
# which is now the default in Ubuntu. See sshd_config(5) and
# /usr/share/doc/openssh-server/README.Debian.gz for details.

Your options for changing from default port:

• Turning off this change and reverting to how SSHd worked prior to this update (From twinsen in discussion linked above):

  • systemctl disable --now ssh.socket
  • systemctl enable --now ssh.service
  • Then the /etc/ssh/sshd_config works again with Ports and Addresses setting

• OR Listening socket stream update (from saxl in discussion linked above)

  1. mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/ssh.socket.d

  2. cat >/etc/systemd/system/ssh.socket.d/listen.conf <<EOF
     [Socket]
     ListenStream=
     ListenStream=1234
     EOF
     

  3. sudo systemctl daemon-reload
  4. sudo systemctl restart ssh.socket

It should then state it's started listening on the new port: systemctl status ssh ...

Nov 07 14:42:37 webserver.abc.com sshd[58725]: Server listening on 0.0.0.0 port 1234.
Nov 07 14:42:37 webserver.abc.com sshd[58725]: Server listening on :: port 1234