I run the server in the physics department at Oregon State University and some of the users want to transfer there files using a windows program called "SSH Secure Shell". I get the following messages in auth.log

Sep 18 10:29:18 wngr497-pc08 sshd[12206]: Accepted password for vpodolsk from 128.193.96.98 port 3901 ssh2
Sep 18 10:29:18 wngr497-pc08 sshd[12206]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user vpodolsk by (uid=0)
Sep 18 10:29:18 wngr497-pc08 sshd[12220]: subsystem request for sftp
Sep 18 10:29:21 wngr497-pc08 sshd[12206]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session closed for user vpodolsk

But this person is not able to log in. It works for me and I get the following message in auth.log

Sep 15 08:24:53 wngr497-pc08 sshd[8224]: Accepted publickey for vielmaj from 128.193.96.44 port 51379 ssh2
Sep 15 08:24:53 wngr497-pc08 sshd[8224]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user vielmaj by (uid=0)

We are running Ubuntu now, but we used to run Suse, so all the old RSA pub keys no longer work. Does this look like the problem?

Jason

Hey Jason,

It looks like you're logging in without a password via a copy of your id_dsa.pub key in the server's authorized_keys2 file, yea? The user is trying to login with a username/password and so is triggering a different authentication path.

Instead of going to the trouble of debugging that, I would:

(1) reinstall openssh-server
(2) regenerate public keys unless you have some good motivation not to do so (they are signed by some company who charges you cash is one such reason I suppose.)

In /etc/ssh/sshd_config, Set the LogLevel to something higher so you can gather more information about what's going on. From sshd_config(5):

...