How to setup a host based Authentication for a server and a client,or for a server and more clients?
Can someone help me in this please.......

As part of ssh or just as a tcp wrapper like using /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny??

As a part of ssh....
Thanks for your assistance in advance..

From man page of sshd_config:

          HostbasedAuthentication
               Specifies whether rhosts or /etc/hosts.equiv
               authentication together with successful public key
               client host authentication is allowed (hostbased
               authentication).  This option is similar to
               RhostsRSAAuthentication and applies to protocol version
               2 only.  The default is ``no''.

iam a newbie, sorry for asking too much questions,
does this applies for both client and server?

No worries. It applies to any machine where a sshd is running. ssh_config is for client config and sshd_config is for server config. If there is a acting as a server, you have to edit it's /etc/ssh/sshd_config and restart it's sshd, plus editing the hosts.equiv to your needs. If you come from another box like a pc with putty or ssh client from a linux box for example, you do not have to edit or restart anything on the client.

i did the configurations, i enabled the HostbasedAuthentication yes in both the ssh_config of client and sshd_config of server. Then i added the the client hostname and ip in the following manner in etc/hosts.equiv file of the server.

clienthost ip

but when i gave ssh server from the client it is asking for the password.
Please correct me if i were wrong in any of the above mentioned scenarios...