i was using ssh fine a few weeks ago but yesterday i tried to connect to my machine via ssh and it says "connection refused." So on the server i noticed that sshd is not showing up when i do a "ps ax". I try to start it manually with /usr/sbin/sshd and nothing happens, still can't connect.

Then i tried debug mode, "/usr/sbin/sshd -d" and everything works fine. i can connect for one session sshd closes.

I suspect it's something to do with the way sshd gets forked. not sure.

I am running slackware 10.2

please help,
thanks,
-rich

oh, btw i was doing what i mentioned above under root so i don't think its a permissions problem.

is it possible that "fork" is messed up?

i don't think the problem is sshd itself. but perhaps more systemwide.
i get this error message when loading rpc.portmap

"portmap: fork: No such device"

ssh gets started by /etc/rc.d/rc.sshd. Try (as root). Also, to make it automatically start at boot (by default it does, but this wouldn't hurt): Let us know if this works, or post any errors

rc.sshd is already enabled. i get the same results with the start up script as calling it manually. it does not get started. if i try ./rc.sshd stop or restart after a "start" it still reports no process killed.

i know sshd worked before.

thanks,
-rich

well i fixed the problem by doing a "system restore" -reinstalled all the packages that came on the cd. This happened probably because i deleted the wrong things. Everything is fine, my system configurations are still there.