Topic: SSH Login suddenly stopped working

[NickCritten]

Don't know why, but SSH remote login just will not let me in...

I keep getting access denied.
Login directly works fine with same root password.
I ran a tail -f /var/log/messages and watched while I tried to SSH in and it said FAILED PASSWORD which is rubbish.

I even tried reseting the root/admin password to 1234, then tried that but it still says FAILED PASSWORD.
Also tried resetting the root password from the command line using passwd, still get the same problem.

I have also tried unsetting all the SSH settings on the Server-manager, then resetting them again. Nothing works.

Has anyone got any Ideas?

btw i haven't updated SSH or fiddled with it in any way, it just stopped working one day.

Cheers,

[cc_skavenger]

ok, have you changed the password in the server manager under users?  Changing the password in the command line does not work.  This will create the situation you are in.  Changing it in the server manager ensures that several things are updated so that the password works for both admin and root.

HTH

[NickCritten]

Yes, it was the first thing I tried. I only tried changing the root passwd at the comand line when that didn't work.

[NickCritten]

New Update,

I have now tried setting putty to use SSH1 only (incase ssh2 had died for some reason), also tried enabling and disable compression.

Still no joy, Still getting PASSWORD FAILED

Is there any way to get it to tell me what password it thinks was typed in?

Cheers,

[ldkeen]

Nick,
Can you check /etc/ssh/sshd_config and see if the following line is there:
PermitRootLogin yes
You will get a failed password for root if this line is set to no. Do you have any custom templates in /etc/e-smith/templates-custom/etc/ssh/sshd_config ??
Better still if you could post the output of "cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config" and see if there's anything different to the standard setup. I was going to suggest taking the caps lock off but you sound like you're ready to throw something  
Lloyd

[ldkeen]

Just another thought, have you installed any other third party contribs, such as user shell access? It'd probably pay to go through the log files for the last week or so paying particular attention to ssh entries.
Lloyd

[NickCritten]

hehehe...

I seem to remember that it was set to allow root logins when I last checked, but when I get home tonight I will have a look and I will post the sshd_config.

[NickCritten]

It'd probably pay to go through the log files for the last week or so paying particular attention to ssh entries.

Good idea, I'll look back to the first occurence of this highly annoying "PASSWORD FAILED" and see what happened immediately before this.

Sorry if some of this is obvious troubleshooting, I'm still semi-newbie-ish at this low-level linux stuff