[sf-lug] request for help re ssh -- sshd login failure

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Jim Stockford (jim at well.com):

> 
>     Absolutely right, of course.
>     We're considering throwing the baby, bath-water,
> bath tub, sink and the rest of the house 'cause
> it's easy.

This is true -- but part of the price is that you learn nothing.

>     Our thinking is that a distro represents a
> particular build, which is guided by particular
> policies and implemented by particular humans. 

Yet, it's really not credible that Ubuntu, as questionable as its
quality control has often been, would furnish a broken sshd
configuration.

IMO, you should use this as an opportunity to learn real-world
troubleshooting -- which starts with suppressing the urge to flail
around making changes out of desperation without a credible plan.
Frankly, setting home directories to 777 and screwing around with PAM is
the latter, even though you call it 'an experiment'.

You should be solving your ssh problem using fundamentals, e.g., can you
ssh to localhost?  What do logfiles say?  Can you learn anything by
adding verbosity options to your ssh client command?




> If we move into a RedHat type house and succeed with
> what we want, maybe we'll just settle in. We can
> always build another Ubuntu house and try to see
> what are the significant differences between the
> two. We can even run them side by side.
>     At this point, everything is wide open for us.
> Ultimately we want to run an Ubuntu server platforma

Um, why?  What problem are you actually attempting to solve?
If you're just doing more tire-kicking of distros, maybe you should
start with VMs.

FWIW, the one Ubuntu Server installation I've had foisted off onto me
(www.svlug.org) has left me profoundly unimpressed with the adequacy of
that for servers, but make up your own mind.