I have a Dell Server running Fedora 8, have set up ssh sshd is running, etc. From a laptop running Fedora Live CD, I can connect via SSH. From a different laptop running Suse Live CD, I can connect via SSH. From either laptop running Putty on WinXP, I get: "Network Error: Connection Refused"

So I am guessing a Putty config issue, but have tried everything.

ssh2 is running on the server, both RSA and DSA keys are in place.

command from the laptops when running Live CD is: ssh 192.168.1.70

from here I simply have to input the PW or login and PW.

what could be so hard about that in Putty?

PuTTY allows you to do either Telnet (port 23) OR ssh (port 22). You might want to verify you're selecting ssh rather than telnet from the PuTTY session.

Set PuTTY to Never Close Window On Exit.
Start the session.
You should be able to Right Click on the Title bar to display further options.
There should be one to give you debug/trace.

This is what I got when trying to telnet:

2008-04-28 10:25:47 Looking up host "192.168.1.70"
2008-04-28 10:25:47 Connecting to 192.168.1.70 port 23
2008-04-28 10:25:47 client: WILL NAWS
2008-04-28 10:25:47 client: WILL TSPEED
2008-04-28 10:25:47 client: WILL TTYPE
2008-04-28 10:25:47 client: WILL NEW_ENVIRON
2008-04-28 10:25:47 client: DO ECHO
2008-04-28 10:25:47 client: WILL SGA
2008-04-28 10:25:47 client: DO SGA
2008-04-28 10:25:48 Failed to connect to 192.168.1.70: Network error: Connection refused
2008-04-28 10:25:51 Network error: Connection refused

This is what I got when trying to ssh:

2008-04-28 10:28:17 Looking up host "192.168.1.70"
2008-04-28 10:28:17 Connecting to 192.168.1.70 port 22
2008-04-28 10:28:18 Failed to connect to 192.168.1.70: Network error: Connection refused
2008-04-28 10:28:18 Network error: Connection refused


still no idea what the server is looking for. even a basic telnet wont work from my DOS prompt:

C:\Documents and Settings>ping 192.168.1.70

Pinging 192.168.1.70 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.70: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.70: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.70: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.70: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.70:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 3ms, Maximum = 5ms, Average = 3ms

C:\Documents and Settings>telnet 192.168.1.70
Connecting To 192.168.1.70...Could not open connection to the host, on port 23:
Connect failed

seems like your winxp has a host firewall blocking outgoing connections on port 22

Go to windows command line. Type "telnet 192.168.1.70 22". This should establish a connection with sshd. If it does you should see something like this:

If this works then the problem is putty related. If you get "connection refused" then something is blocking the connection, most likely window's wonderful firewall. Also, have you tried just pinging the host? nmap is a good tool to scan ports. It will tell you if the port is closed or filtered.

Also you might want to check networking. Many home routers will let you block traffic between hosts. If you're in a work environment that uses VLANs it is not unusual that internal firewalls prevent certain ports from working from one VLAN to another. If so you'll need to ask whoever manages those firewalls to open port 22 from the Windows VLAN to the Linux VLAN.