Hi - I have a SUSE Enterprise Linux Server V9 that I have an issue with. Policy says that root connectivity via ssh needs to be disabled. So, to do that, I made the following change in the sshd_config section:

# Authentication:

#LoginGraceTime 2m
#PermitRootLogin yes
PermitRootLogin no
#StrictModes yes
#MaxAuthTries 6

The issue is that a utility that the vendor uses uses root to connect via ssh across the two servers in our configuration to collect logging and reporting information. when I disable root login in sshd_config, it breaks their utility. I asked why they would have it run as root and not as some privledged account...but I have not received an answer yet. In our configuration, we have 3 networks (2 are private networks and 1 is connectivity to the corporate network.) My question, is it possible to disable root Login via ssh for some network segments but not others?

Only by running separate sshds on all network interfaces.

The better way to do this is AllowRootLogin without-password or AllowRootLogin forced-commands-only, then generate a public/private keypair for the vendor and restrict what they can do with the "command" option in ~root/.ssh/authorized_keys.

The best solution are usualy the simpler ones:
Have the vendor use a different id than root.
if not possible use ssh key as mentioned by geekosaur.
you can even restrict that key usage to the specific script that need to be run

-Laurent

Oh, and another alternative is to give the vendor a non-root account and have them use sudo with restrictions in /etc/sudoers. The vendor might not be willing to play along with this, though.