SSH remote login fails after moving virtual machine
 

I have a SUSE 10.1 server running in a virtual machine using VMWare Player on a Windows host. After moving the vm to a new host server I can no longer remote login to the server with putty (or vnc).

I originally built the vm on my desktop. Remote login for my personal account was working (putty for ssh connection) and remote login for root was disabled. VNC was also able to connect and properly start a gui session.

After I moved it to another host I had to reconfigure the network cards (because the vm uses "Bridged" networking and the MAC address changed?). After updating the networking components (keeping the same IP address and hostname) things came alive, except for this remote login issue. No other configuration changes were made.

My gut tells me this is related to the nic reconfiguration, but I'm too much of a novice at some of this to know where to go after verifying the configuration. I've been through the forum threads on ssh login issues and the configuration verifications, but I'm now at a loss as to where to look next.

TIA for any hints on where to start.

Try logging in with the -v (verbose) option. It would be more illustrative if you posted what the error is when you try to log in.

The error is a simple "Access Denied". Here is the packet data from a single failed login attempt. KEY data, user and password have been removed.

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~= PuTTY log 2006.12.29 17:27:42 =~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=
Incoming packet type 2 / 0x02 (SSH1_SMSG_PUBLIC_KEY)
---------<chomp>------
Outgoing packet type 3 / 0x03 (SSH1_CMSG_SESSION_KEY)
---------<chomp>------
Incoming packet type 14 / 0x0e (SSH1_SMSG_SUCCESS)
Outgoing packet type 4 / 0x04 (SSH1_CMSG_USER)
00000000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ....XXXXX
Incoming packet type 15 / 0x0f (SSH1_SMSG_FAILURE)
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 00 ....
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 01 80 .....
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 02 45 72 ....Er
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 03 03 f5 28 ......(
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 04 01 53 28 a0 .....S(.
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 05 26 9e c8 d6 9b ....&....
Outgoing packet type 9 / 0x09 (SSH1_CMSG_AUTH_PASSWORD)
00000000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ....XXXXX
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 07 7d 44 ec 02 ee 55 3c ....}D...U<
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 08 48 e9 b0 ca 60 3e 75 af ....H...`>u.
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 09 d8 6e 70 09 97 32 e9 46 e5 .....np..2.F.
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 0a 0f 53 b3 6d bd 6b a2 16 68 f9 .....S.m.k..h.
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 0b 91 88 ff 8a 3a c3 59 34 05 33 21 ........:.Y4.3!
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 0c cf 89 b8 75 58 95 87 8a 7e f7 50 2a .......uX...~.P*
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 0d f3 6e d4 2d ce 1c 4c 81 a4 c9 d4 70 .....n.-..L....p
00000010 e6 .
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 0e 68 d9 e2 39 1e cd df 90 ec 47 ac 13 ....h..9.....G..
00000010 ff 13 ..
Outgoing packet type 32 / 0x20 (SSH1_MSG_IGNORE)
00000000 00 00 00 0f 32 29 65 aa a7 5d 5d a8 db fd cf 10 ....2)e..]].....
00000010 e4 61 f9 .a.
Incoming packet type 15 / 0x0f (SSH1_SMSG_FAILURE)

Thanks for the help.

Additional Info: I found that I am to log into this server from another linux box. This only fails using putty from my W2K workstation. The log file at /var/log/messages shows: Error: PAM: authentication failure for <user> at <my IP address>

This occurs on the very same user name and pwd that I am able to log in with from my Ubuntu box. Does this info help any?

It sounds like PuTTY may be refusing to connect to that server since it had previously cached the server's SSH fingerprint. Since the VM has changed machines, it's likely that the fingerprint was regenerated on the server (and now no longer matches what PuTTY had cached). I'm not sure where PuTTY stores it's cached fingerprints, but I'm betting if you deleted the fingerprint cache and restarted PuTTY the problem would go away.

Thanks for the ideas. I found that PuTTY stores it's key cache at HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/SimonTatham/PuTTY, and there is an entry for each key. I removed the key for this box, but it made no difference. I am still not able to connect with putty from my W2K box. I get the same "Access Denied" error message.

Problem solved. Thanks for all the help. It was my PuTTY executable being an old version. I downloaded the newest executable and I was able to connect.

I realise your prob is solved: but have you ever considered using public/private key authenication rather than password?
I got tired of seeing my SSH port being hit 2000-5000 times per 24hrs with attempts to gain access by password authenication - even though I was sure I was using secure passwrods I could see every username/password combination under the sun being tried. So I turned password authenication off and use public/private key authenication instead! It's easy to set up and I don't need to worry about passwords being cracked: without the keys (which I physically store safely) there is no access to my SSH server.

http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/putty-openssh.html provides a clear desctription of how to set it up in both OpenSSH and in your PuTTY client.

Just a thought!