Hi folks, I'm having some rather odd trouble with ssh. It all started when I tried to create rsa public/private keys to login to a remote ssh account. The account is on a university server and the address redirects to several different machines so (following their wiki instructions...sigh) I executed this on my local (my os is Ubuntu "hardy" btw):

Code:

echo "StrictHostKeyChecking=no">>~/.ssh/config

Logged in and everything seemed fine. Logged out and (again following their advice) issued this command to create the rsa key pair:

Code:

ssh-keygen -t rsa

The id_rsa and id_rsa.pub were created and the next step was to send the key to the remote linux account:

Code:

scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub remote.server.edu:

Something about this command didn't quite look right, however i ran it anyway, trusting their wisdom over mine. The gnome keyring popped up and prompted me for the passphrase to unlock my key. I entered it, then on the terminal I was prompted for my remote account password. Entered it...but, uh-oh, the "password:" prompt reappeared as if my password was wrong?! I know without a shadow of a doubt that I entered all the necessary passwords correctly.
So, now very curious (and confused and frustrated) I force quit the terminal, restarted it and tried to ssh to my remote account again:

Code:

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@       WARNING: POSSIBLE DNS SPOOFING DETECTED!          @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
The RSA host key for <remote.server.edu> has changed,
and the key for the according IP address <0.0.0.0>
is unknown. This could either mean that
DNS SPOOFING is happening or the IP address for the host
and its host key have changed at the same time.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@    WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!     @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that the RSA host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is
<fingerprint>
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /home/me/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending key in /home/me/.ssh/known_hosts:1
Password authentication is disabled to avoid man-in-the-middle attacks.
Keyboard-interactive authentication is disabled to avoid man-in-the-middle attacks.
Permission denied (publickey,password,hostbased).

My known_hosts file has 2 [1] entries by the way so this error message didn't really help me! I've tried removing both entries individually with no luck. I tried numerous things but to no avail. I found that wiping the contents of /.ssh would (usually) put me back to square one but even then, I can only login once through ssh. The second time I usually get a message similar to the above except with this at the end instead:

Code:

Permission denied (publickey,keyboard-interactive,hostbased).

I'm baffled! Is there a problem with my ssh configuation? ssh keys? am i using the wrong commands? Sometimes typing my (correct!) password won't even log me in so I'm thinking there might be a problem with the university's ssh configuration. (It's worth pointing out that I have no problem logging in through ftp) Any ideas?