The peer, at 10.99.0.2 (name peer), stands in for the Ubuntu VM, the client; this VM, 10.99.0.1 from the peer, is the server. Get a shell there with sudo ip netns exec lepeer bash. The peer shares this VM's files and users, so a key made there is in the same home directory.

The lab creates user kim (password Lab-Pass-1): work as kim on both sides, for example with sudo ip netns exec lepeer su - kim. It also runs a small web service on this VM's 127.0.0.1:9090 only, standing in for Cockpit.

Task 2 turns off password logins on this VM: log in with a key yourself, and keep a second session or a console open while you change sshd.

Tasks

As kim on the peer, make an ed25519 key pair ~/.ssh/lab_ed25519 without a passphrase, install it for kim on this VM with ssh-copy-id (to [email protected]), and log in with it. Look at the permissions of ~/.ssh and authorized_keys.
On this VM, turn off password and keyboard-interactive logins and root logins, in a drop-in that wins over the other files in /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/. Check the configuration, reload sshd, and check what sshd uses.
From the peer, a password login as kim is now refused, and the key still works.
As kim on the peer, forward the peer's local port 19090 to port 9090 on this VM's own localhost, through SSH with the key, in the background. curl http://localhost:19090/ on the peer returns the page.

Hints

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/.ssh/lab_ed25519 -N '', ssh-copy-id -i, ssh -i.
Files in sshd_config.d are read in name order and the first value wins: ls /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/. sshd -t, sshd -T | grep -iE '^(passwordauth|kbdinter|permitroot)'; systemctl reload sshd (ssh on Ubuntu).
ssh -o PubkeyAuthentication=no.
ssh -N -f -L 19090:localhost:9090.