I can SSH into my RHEL box, but get an "Access denied" error :-

So, I can SSH in, but it always prints the Access denied!? Why?

First of all, unless you need to access the RHEL box from a cron job, you shouldn't allow root ssh logins.

There is an option in sshd_config that denies root logins. That may be the default.

You need to run "ssh -vv 192.168.0.1" to provide more information. Also check the RHEL Box's log files. It may say why Access is denied.

Other things that can deny access are:
permissions of .ssh to lax.
permissions of private key to lax
permissions of parent home directory to lax
AllowUsers doesn't list the user
Reverse DNS lookup results in a different hostname. (e.g. hostname.domainname expected but hostname is listed in /etc/hosts)

1 members found this post helpful.

1. I know, I will be adding user accounts, but am interested to know more about this problem.

2. Option was disabled, and I could login ok with root, enabling it doesnt change anything. (rebooted machine!)
3. "ssh -vv" was very interesting, I cant see anything of interest tho. (
Of course using the "ssh" command is don via another linux terminal. And this doesn't give the "access denied" output/printf!

Its only when I use Putty I get "access denied"!

OK. I think I am getting the picture. You can use putty-keygen to generate keys. Then load in the private key. An openssh compatible public key will be printed on the top of the dialog box. Copy it and paste it into a file. Add this to the server's authorized_keys file.

If you are a regular user on the server, then this would be in $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys.
Now you have a public key for when you are accessing it from a Linux terminal and one for when you are accessing it from Putty.

You haven't posted the sshd_config file but apparently it is configured for public key authentication.

There wasn't an attempt for using a password so I don't know how that is configured.

Also important, if you use public key authentication, is to use a passphrase. This is used to encrypt the private key on the client. It isn't used on the server side at all, but will protect the server in the case that your private key is stolen.

Think bout your network and make sure its not timing out, also establish port forwarding on the router of the linux box running the SSH Server, but yes root login wont work on SSH by default.

-Hope this gives you some more guidance.

Change another port and try again.

I met the same problem with Putty when trying to connect Ubuntu 10.10 . I resolved it by enabling passwordAuthentication over GSSAPI in sshd_config , and use the SSH option: *SSH-2 only* instead of "SSH-2" .


#### /etc/ssh/sshd_config
PasswordAuthentication yes
GSSAPIAuthentication no
GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes

(then restart daemon: sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart )

#### Putty Connection -> SSH -> under Protocol options -> Preferred SSH protocol version
2 Only

not sure if it works with RHEL, though
--Duc

Open up /etc/ssh/sshd_config and set “PermitRootLogin” to “yes”. (Your ISP probably set it to “without-password”)