ssh trouble checklist

[Jim Knoble]

On 2009-06-05 02:04, Dave Yost wrote:

: There should be a checklist of everything that can go wrong with 
: making an ssh connection.
: 
: Here's one entry for the list, which I didn't know before, and
:  * I couldn't see the problem from the -ddd and -vvv output, and
:  * there were no /var/log/* file entries to give hints.
: 
: Here's what I did
:   sudo kill <pid-of-sshd>
:   /usr/sbin/sshd

Surely that should at least be 'sudo /usr/sbin/sshd', so that sshd has
privileges to listen on low-numbered ports and change UID, but see
below.

: No good.
: 
: Usually I did kill -HUP, but once I just killed sshd outright.
: 
: Gotta start sshd this way:
:   /etc/init.d/sshd start
: 
: At least on Fedora 11.
  [...]

Recent Fedoras, as well as RHEL v5 and CentOS v5, often have SELinux
enabled, which requires that security contexts are set up properly.  The
initscript will do that, but merely running sshd from the command won't.

Also, Fedora/RedHat and cousins have /sbin/service which does a little
bit more to set up an environment for daemons to run in (e.g., 'cd /'
and clearing some environment).  Best is (as root):

    /sbin/service sshd start

on those platforms.

-- 
jim knoble  |  jmknoble at pobox.com  |  http://www.pobox.com/~jmknoble/
(GnuPG key ID: C6F31FFA  >>>>>>  http://www.pobox.com/~jmknoble/keys/ )
(GnuPG fingerprint: 99D8:1D89:8C66:08B5:5C34::5527:A543:8C33:C6F3:1FFA)