UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Hi:

I have been given the responsibility of administering AIX 3.1 machine in my lab recently. And, I am having trouble logging on to the machine using SSH through windous systems. Thus, now no one is able to access it!!

The following error message is displayed when I tried to login:

"The host is unreachable. The host may be down, or there may be a problem with the network connection. Sometimes, such problems may be caused by a misconfigured firewall."

The checked to see if ssh is running on the UNIX machine using "ps -A". And, I couldn't see "sshd" in the generated list. Then I tried to start it using "/usr/local/sbin/sshd start" and it gave me back "Extra argument started". Then I again checked for "sshd". And, the process(sshd) didnt start at all.

This is the /usr/local/etc/sshd_config :

#Port 22
#Protocol 2,1
#ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
#ListenAddress ::

# HostKey for protocol version 1
#HostKey /usr/local/etc/ssh_host_key
# HostKeys for protocol version 2
#HostKey /usr/local/etc/ssh_host_rsa_key
#HostKey /usr/local/etc/ssh_host_dsa_key

# Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key
#KeyRegenerationInterval 3600
#ServerKeyBits 768

# Logging
#obsoletes QuietMode and FascistLogging
#SyslogFacility AUTH
#LogLevel INFO

# Authentication:

#LoginGraceTime 600
#PermitRootLogin yes
#StrictModes yes

#RSAAuthentication yes
#PubkeyAuthentication yes
#AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys

# rhosts authentication should not be used
#RhostsAuthentication no
# Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files
#IgnoreRhosts yes
# For this to work you will also need host keys in /usr/local/etc/ssh_known_host
s
#RhostsRSAAuthentication no
# similar for protocol version 2
#HostbasedAuthentication no
# Change to yes if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for
# RhostsRSAAuthentication and HostbasedAuthentication
#IgnoreUserKnownHosts no

# To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
#PasswordAuthentication yes
#PermitEmptyPasswords no

# Change to no to disable s/key passwords
#ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes

# Kerberos options
#KerberosAuthentication no
#KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes
#KerberosTicketCleanup yes

#AFSTokenPassing no

# Kerberos TGT Passing only works with the AFS kaserver
#KerberosTgtPassing no

# Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM keyboard-interactive authentication
# Warning: enabling this may bypass the setting of 'PasswordAuthentication'
#PAMAuthenticationViaKbdInt yes

#X11Forwarding no
#X11DisplayOffset 10
#X11UseLocalhost yes
#PrintMotd yes
#PrintLastLog yes
#KeepAlive yes
#UseLogin no
#UsePrivilegeSeparation yes
#Compression yes

#MaxStartups 10
# no default banner path
#Banner /some/path
#VerifyReverseMapping no

# override default of no subsystems
Subsystem sftp /usr/local/libexec/sftp-server
UsePrivilegeSeparation yes



And, this is /usr/etc/ssh_config :

# Host *
# ForwardAgent yes
# ForwardX11 yes
# RhostsAuthentication yes
# RhostsRSAAuthentication yes
# RSAAuthentication yes
# PasswordAuthentication yes
# BatchMode no
# CheckHostIP yes
# StrictHostKeyChecking ask
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/identity
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_dsa
# Port 22
# Protocol 2,1
# Cipher 3des
# Ciphers aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes2
56-cbc
# EscapeChar ~


And, I dont know how to check if the port used by SSH(i.e.22 in my case) is behind the firewall or not.

I am new to unix and still in the process of learning. I hope the information I gave is sufficient for you and understand what the problem is? I dont have a clue whats going on!!
Please help me in fixing this problem.

Thanks in advance
pdepa

I am assuming you used the console to get on the box and send the info you posted. Are you able to ping the box or connect to it with any other method then ssh from your windows box? For instance, can you ftp to it? Just want to rule out a legitimate network issue from an ssh issue since you didn't specify.

Yeah, I got that info after logging on to the console. And, also I can log on to the box using putty/rlogin. The problem seems to be only with logging thru ssh!

-pdepa

I don't know AIX, but I a few general ideas. Your error message "unreachable" sounds like a tcp/ip problem rather than an ssh problem.

Sign on the AIX box and try stuff like:
ssh localhost
ftp localhost
This tests to see if the service is running without using the network. Your "Extra argument started" may indicate a problem with the startup p script, but it could be that it's trying to tell you that the service is already running.

And from the windows boxes, try tracert and ping to the AIX system.