I have a server running Mandrake 9. ssh is installed and is running. But i am not able to ssh to it. What am I missing?

What are you trying to ssh _from_? try using ssh -v to get verbose output and if that doesn't help you figure it out, post the output so we can take a look at it

Here is what i get when running ssh -v


ssh -v -l sean 192.168.1.101
OpenSSH_3.4p1, SSH protocols 1.5/2.0, OpenSSL 0x0090605f
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config
debug1: Rhosts Authentication disabled, originating port will not be trusted.
debug1: ssh_connect: needpriv 0
debug1: Connecting to 192.168.1.101 [192.168.1.101] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /Users/shouston/.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/shouston/.ssh/id_rsa type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/shouston/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host
debug1: Calling cleanup 0x17ddc(0x0)

The next thing you should be seeing after the identity file entries is something like this:

debug1: Remote protocol version 1.99, remote software version OpenSSH_3.1p1
debug1: match: OpenSSH_3.1p1 pat OpenSSH_2.*,OpenSSH_3.0*,OpenSSH_3.1*
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0

It looks like you are connecting, but the server is refusing to match protocols with the client. What does your sshd_config file on the server look like? That is probably stored in /etc/ssh

You should probably also post any entries from your /var/log/messages file that relate to sshd.

Are you sure you have generated keys for the server?

Here is my sshd_config configuration.

# $OpenBSD: sshd_config,v 1.56 2002/06/20 23:37:12 markus Exp $

# This is the sshd server system-wide configuration file. See
# sshd_config(5) for more information.

# This sshd was compiled with PATH=/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin

# The strategy used for options in the default sshd_config shipped with
# OpenSSH is to specify options with their default value where
# possible, but leave them commented. Uncommented options change a
# default value.

#Port 22
Protocol 2,1
#ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
#ListenAddress ::

# HostKey for protocol version 1
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key
# HostKeys for protocol version 2
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key

# Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key
#KeyRegenerationInterval 3600
#ServerKeyBits 768

# Logging
#obsoletes QuietMode and FascistLogging
#SyslogFacility AUTH
#LogLevel INFO

# Authentication:

#LoginGraceTime 600
#PermitRootLogin yes
#StrictModes yes

#RSAAuthentication yes
#PubkeyAuthentication yes
#AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys

# rhosts authentication should not be used
#RhostsAuthentication no
# Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files
#IgnoreRhosts yes
# For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts
#RhostsRSAAuthentication no
# similar for protocol version 2
#HostbasedAuthentication no
# Change to yes if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for
# RhostsRSAAuthentication and HostbasedAuthentication
#IgnoreUserKnownHosts no

# To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
#PasswordAuthentication yes
#PermitEmptyPasswords no

# Change to no to disable s/key passwords
#ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes

# Kerberos options
#KerberosAuthentication no
#KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes
#KerberosTicketCleanup yes

#AFSTokenPassing no

# Kerberos TGT Passing only works with the AFS kaserver
#KerberosTgtPassing no

# Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM keyboard-interactive authentication
# Warning: enabling this may bypass the setting of 'PasswordAuthentication'
#PAMAuthenticationViaKbdInt yes

X11Forwarding yes
#X11DisplayOffset 10
#X11UseLocalhost yes
#PrintMotd yes
#PrintLastLog yes
#KeepAlive yes
#UseLogin no
UsePrivilegeSeparation yes
#Compression yes

#MaxStartups 10
# no default banner path
#Banner /some/path
#VerifyReverseMapping no

# override default of no subsystems
Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/ssh/sftp-server
PermitRootLogin without-password
AllowUsers sean root



What do I need to do to create them?

ssh-keygen is the tool you want to use for generating keys. You shouldn't need to do that, though. It doesn't look like you are even getting to the point where it checks the keys.

Try sshing to the machine, but do it _from_ the machine you are trying to get to (e.g. ssh -v localhost). This should rule out if it is a network issue or not.