Hello,

I'm running SuSE 9.3, with linux 2.6.11.4-21.10-smp kernel, with OpenSSH 4.3p2. I use WinSCP as an SFTP client on Windows platform to login remotely to the server. It works like a champ. My boss, however, wants to use another client, in particular Ipswitch WS_FTP Pro (it has an option to use SSH protocol) or FileZilla (since, sometime ago I was able to sell him to use Mozilla). Here's the problem: whereas WinSCP works great, both FileZilla and WS_FTP fail to login. The following is the error message when loging using FileZilla:

Status: Connecting to 10.1.1.31:22 ...
Status: Connected with 10.1.1.31:22. Waiting for welcome message...
Response: SSH-1.99-OpenSSH_4.3p2
Error: Timeout detected!
Error: Unable to connect!
Status: Waiting to retry... (5 retries left)
Status: Connecting to 10.1.1.31:22 ...
Status: Connected with 10.1.1.31:22. Waiting for welcome message...
Response: SSH-1.99-OpenSSH_4.3p2
Error: Timeout detected!
Error: Unable to connect!
Status: Waiting to retry... (4 retries left)
Status: Connecting to 10.1.1.31:22 ...
Status: Connected with 10.1.1.31:22. Waiting for welcome message...
Response: SSH-1.99-OpenSSH_4.3p2
Error: Timeout detected!
Error: Unable to connect!
Status: Waiting to retry... (3 retries left)

I checked my log file at the server /var/log/messages, and this is what I found:

Feb 15 09:06:30 linux sshd[6338]: Did not receive identification string from ::ffff:10.1.1.8
Feb 15 09:07:01 linux sshd[6339]: Did not receive identification string from ::ffff:10.1.1.8
Feb 15 09:07:32 linux sshd[6340]: Did not receive identification string from ::ffff:10.1.1.8
Feb 15 09:08:03 linux sshd[6341]: Did not receive identification string from ::ffff:10.1.1.8
Feb 15 09:08:34 linux sshd[6342]: Did not receive identification string from ::ffff:10.1.1.8
Feb 15 09:09:05 linux sshd[6344]: Did not receive identification string from ::ffff:10.1.1.8

I did, however, specify both username and password. Quite frankly, I am not sure how to interpret the log entry. And how to fix the problem. Could anyone, please, help me? Thank you very much.

r.

Is sftp enabled in your sshd_config? This requires a line similar to the following in your sshd_config file:

yes, I have that line uncommented in the sshd_conf file.

By the way, I was able to login using FileZilla (it was loging using FTP protocol even though I specified port 22), but WS_FTP still can't login. The following is the error message that I get when loging using WS_FTP:

Connecting to 10.1.1.31:22
Connected to 10.1.1.31:22 in 0.062500 seconds, Waiting for Server Response
Server Welcome: SSH-1.99-OpenSSH_3.9p1
Client Version: SSH-2.0-WS_FTP-9.0-2004.06.17
DSS Signature Verified
Session Keys Created
Ciphers Created
New Client->Server ciphers in place.
New Client->Server ciphers in place.
Completed SSH Key Exchange. New Keys in place.
Server has disconnected for reason 2 (SSH_DISCONNECT_PROTOCOL_ERROR)
"Too many authentication failures for tei"
Failed SSH User Authentication
SSH Transport closed.

But the /var/log/messages file does not register anything when I'm loging in. That's really strange. The most odd thing is that I can connect to the server using PuTTY, WinSCP, and FileZilla but I cannot login using WS_FTP. It would normally prompt me to thinking that the WS_FTP client is not configured correctly. However, I can login, using WS_FTP client, to another SSH/SFTP server (it's not my server, tough, so I can't just copy all the configuration files). Any idea?

Here's what happened; I was in a process of upgrading to OpenSSH 4.3p2, but, effectively, my server was still running OpenSSH 3.9p1. I'm not sure why, but, when running 3.9p1 the WS_FTP client couldn't login to the server. The moment, however, when the upgrade was finished and it was reported that the server was running 4.3p2, the WS_FTP client had no problem with communicating with the server.

One final word of caution; I tried a number of SSH/SFTP clients in the process. When you first login to the server, the client tells you that you've never connected to this server and if you're not sure you should check, blah, blah, blah... and it gives you the server signature, right? Guess what, when you upgrade to newer version of SSH server that signature changes. So, you'd expect the client to notify you of this. Here's what I found:

FileZilla - NO MESSAGE AT ALL !!!
WS_FTP - simply gives you a new signature
PuTTy - same thing, it just prompts you with a new server signature

WinSCP - only this client gives you a WARNING message informing you that the server signature has been changed. It, then, asks you to verify the new signature.

For those of you who are in doubt, this is quite critical. When the server that you normally connect to changes a signature it might be for a legitimate reason; the server has been upgraded. But, it might be also be because you're login into a different server; the old server had been compromised and you're loging into a hacked server.

That's all I have.

stupid question but where are you specifying the ip/hostname, user, and password?

Did you create a new site or did you just input the info on the toolbar on top?

If you just input the info on the tool bar you will have to specify the protocol as it defalts to ftp. Try using sftp://hostname in the address bar.

Other than that i don't know.

edit: after reading your second post about it defaulting to ftp i'm pretty sure this will resolve your problem.

I did a
while logged in via putty to
the remote machine so I could see what was going on while Filezilla
was failing.

I got:

I followed the advice on the above post:
in Filezilla's "address" box

replace
joebob.nmt.edu

with
sftp://joebob.nmt.edu

Also don't forget to use port 22. Worked like a charm.