Why is ssh forbidding connections if I try to login to a given IP and then allow me to connect if I try to a different IP of the same host?

some details?

Well... I connect to the office's network through this server with openVPN.

The server's VPN interface has the IP 10.79.0.1, I think. It is also present in the office's 192.168.0.0/24. When my computer at home connects to the VPN, I get a 10.79.0.0/24 address as well. Now... if I try to login to 192.168.0.2 (the server's IP address), I get rejected... if I try to login to 10.79.0.1, I do it successfully (the same user, the same password).

It's specially anoying right now, because the server's public link is down... and I don't get to login from the inner network though it's listening (I'm connected through another host...openVPN too).

my thougth is that it's only a routing problem... what's the error message you get when you are "rejected" ? Is this something about host unreachable or timeout?

look at the output of "route -n" when your VPN is on (consider posting this here too) do you have any route leading to 192.168.x.x range out of the "default" vpn route?

Hey! I just noticed something. I was getting a "username or password incorrect" message... or something like that.... but ssh doesn't show that kind of message when you missed the username or password. It simply asks for the password three times in case you missed the password.

Does that tell you something?