ssh_exchange_identification fails (how to fix)

[Chad Franklin Netzer]

Michael Helm <helm at fionn.es.net> writes:

>Do you have a catch-all line in /etc/hosts.allow that denies
>"everything", or an /etc/hosts.deny file?

Yes, I should have mentioned that the "problem" only occurs
on systems that have explicit enabling of selected services.
So, by not enabling sshd in the hosts.allow file, it is
automatically denied by hosts.deny.

The problem for me really (and probably for others, like
Renaud) is that since the sshd damon is not run from inetd,
I didn't expect it to be under hosts.deny or hosts.allow
control, and the ssh error message is quite deceptive
(returning a "Success" string as the failure diagnosis :)

The INSTALL file does briefly mention the tcp_wrappers option;
it just caught me off guard.  In retrospect, however, this
behavior does appear to be the desired one, and not a bug.

Cheers,

Chad Netzer
cnetzer at stanford.edu