diff --git a/tools/harden.sh b/tools/harden.sh
index 0dbcc1d..fda5d1c 100755
--- a/tools/harden.sh
+++ b/tools/harden.sh
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 
 # LXS - Server Hardening
-# Description: Apply baseline security hardening (UFW + fail2ban + SSH key-only + unattended-upgrades)
+# Description: Apply baseline security hardening (UFW + fail2ban + unattended-upgrades)
 # Author: LXS
 # Date: 2025
 
@@ -22,7 +22,6 @@ set -u
 
 DO_UFW=1
 DO_FAIL2BAN=1
-DO_SSH=1
 DO_UNATTENDED=1
 ASSUME_YES=0
 
@@ -30,7 +29,6 @@ for arg in "$@"; do
     case "$arg" in
         --no-ufw)         DO_UFW=0 ;;
         --no-fail2ban)    DO_FAIL2BAN=0 ;;
-        --no-ssh)         DO_SSH=0 ;;
         --no-unattended)  DO_UNATTENDED=0 ;;
         -y|--yes)         ASSUME_YES=1 ;;
         -h|--help)
@@ -40,7 +38,6 @@ Usage: harden.sh [options]
 Options:
   --no-ufw          Skip UFW firewall setup
   --no-fail2ban     Skip fail2ban setup
-  --no-ssh          Skip SSH key-only enforcement
   --no-unattended   Skip unattended-upgrades setup
   -y, --yes         Skip confirmation prompt
   -h, --help        Show this help
@@ -60,17 +57,25 @@ done
 
 require_debian_ubuntu || exit 1
 
-SSH_PORT=$(awk '/^[[:space:]]*Port[[:space:]]+/ {print $2; exit}' /etc/ssh/sshd_config 2>/dev/null)
+# Read the effective Port from sshd_config + any drop-in under sshd_config.d/
+sshd_effective_port() {
+    local files=(/etc/ssh/sshd_config)
+    if compgen -G "/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/*.conf" >/dev/null; then
+        files+=(/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/*.conf)
+    fi
+    awk '/^[[:space:]]*Port[[:space:]]+/ {print $2}' "${files[@]}" 2>/dev/null | tail -1
+}
+
+SSH_PORT=$(sshd_effective_port)
 SSH_PORT=${SSH_PORT:-22}
 
 echo -e "${WHITE}${BOLD}LXS Server Hardening${NC}"
-echo -e "${GRAY}━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━${NC}"
+show_separator
 echo "The following actions will be applied to this server:"
 [ $DO_UFW -eq 1 ]        && echo "  • UFW firewall: default deny incoming, allow SSH on port ${SSH_PORT}"
 [ $DO_FAIL2BAN -eq 1 ]   && echo "  • fail2ban: enable sshd jail (bantime 1h, maxretry 5)"
-[ $DO_SSH -eq 1 ]        && echo "  • SSH: disable password auth (key-only), prohibit-password root login"
 [ $DO_UNATTENDED -eq 1 ] && echo "  • unattended-upgrades: enable automatic security updates"
-echo -e "${GRAY}━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━${NC}"
+show_separator
 
 if [ $ASSUME_YES -ne 1 ]; then
     read -r -p "Proceed? [y/N] " reply
@@ -80,7 +85,8 @@ if [ $ASSUME_YES -ne 1 ]; then
     esac
 fi
 
-export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
+apt_noninteractive
+wait_for_apt || exit 1
 
 # ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
 # UFW
@@ -121,55 +127,6 @@ EOF
     ok "fail2ban enabled (sshd jail active)"
 }
 
-# ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
-# SSH key-only
-# ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
-
-has_authorized_key() {
-    local user_home
-    for user_home in /root "/home/${SUDO_USER:-}"; do
-        [ -z "$user_home" ] && continue
-        [ "$user_home" = "/home/" ] && continue
-        if [ -s "${user_home}/.ssh/authorized_keys" ]; then
-            return 0
-        fi
-    done
-    return 1
-}
-
-setup_ssh() {
-    info "Enforcing SSH key-only authentication..."
-    if ! has_authorized_key; then
-        err "No authorized_keys found for root or ${SUDO_USER:-current user}."
-        err "Refusing to disable password auth — you would lock yourself out."
-        err "Add a public key first, then re-run: harden.sh --no-ufw --no-fail2ban --no-unattended"
-        return 1
-    fi
-
-    local cfg=/etc/ssh/sshd_config
-    cp -n "$cfg" "${cfg}.lxs-backup"
-
-    sed -i -E \
-        -e 's/^[#[:space:]]*PasswordAuthentication[[:space:]]+.*/PasswordAuthentication no/' \
-        -e 's/^[#[:space:]]*ChallengeResponseAuthentication[[:space:]]+.*/ChallengeResponseAuthentication no/' \
-        -e 's/^[#[:space:]]*KbdInteractiveAuthentication[[:space:]]+.*/KbdInteractiveAuthentication no/' \
-        -e 's/^[#[:space:]]*PermitRootLogin[[:space:]]+.*/PermitRootLogin prohibit-password/' \
-        "$cfg"
-
-    grep -q '^PasswordAuthentication ' "$cfg" || echo 'PasswordAuthentication no' >> "$cfg"
-    grep -q '^PermitRootLogin '         "$cfg" || echo 'PermitRootLogin prohibit-password' >> "$cfg"
-
-    if sshd -t 2>/tmp/lxs_sshd_test; then
-        systemctl reload ssh 2>/dev/null || systemctl reload sshd
-        ok "SSH configured for key-only auth (backup: ${cfg}.lxs-backup)"
-    else
-        err "sshd config test failed; restoring backup."
-        cp "${cfg}.lxs-backup" "$cfg"
-        cat /tmp/lxs_sshd_test >&2
-        return 1
-    fi
-}
-
 # ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
 # unattended-upgrades
 # ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
@@ -192,7 +149,6 @@ EOF
 
 [ $DO_UFW -eq 1 ]        && setup_ufw
 [ $DO_FAIL2BAN -eq 1 ]   && setup_fail2ban
-[ $DO_SSH -eq 1 ]        && setup_ssh || true
 [ $DO_UNATTENDED -eq 1 ] && setup_unattended
 
 # ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
@@ -201,11 +157,9 @@ EOF
 
 echo ""
 echo -e "${WHITE}${BOLD}Summary${NC}"
-echo -e "${GRAY}━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━${NC}"
+show_separator
 command -v ufw       >/dev/null && echo "UFW:                 $(ufw status | head -1)"
 systemctl is-active fail2ban   >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "fail2ban:            active" || echo "fail2ban:            inactive"
-echo "SSH password auth:   $(grep -E '^PasswordAuthentication' /etc/ssh/sshd_config 2>/dev/null | awk '{print $2}' || echo unknown)"
-echo "SSH root login:      $(grep -E '^PermitRootLogin'         /etc/ssh/sshd_config 2>/dev/null | awk '{print $2}' || echo unknown)"
 systemctl is-active unattended-upgrades >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "unattended-upgrades: active" || echo "unattended-upgrades: inactive"
 echo ""
 ok "Hardening complete."