Re: authentication failures

[Bob Proulx]

Thien-Thi Nguyen wrote:
>  $ ssh -V
>  OpenSSH_8.4p1 Debian-5, OpenSSL 1.1.1k  25 Mar 2021
>
> so i don't think that's the problem.

Probably not then.  But it has been the trending problem so it was
worth the shot.

>  The error message says "Too many authentication failures" which
> sounds to me like there is a count somewhere (state) that needs to
> be reset somehow.  Anyway...

There's no external state.  That's just the internal state of ssh talking.

> > 2. The second workaround is to upgrade your ssh user key access to
> >    ED25519 keys.

> ... thanks for the pointer.  Just to be future-proof, i have
> followed the procedures and created a proper ED25519 (i think),
> and registered it w/ savannah.  FWIW:

Excellent!

> I still see the same error on retry, unfortunately.

    Dec  4 20:24:18 vcs0 sshd[8774]: Postponed publickey for ttn from 
[[IPv6-redacted]] port 33008 ssh2 [preauth]
    Dec  4 20:24:18 vcs0 sshd[8774]: Accepted publickey for ttn from 
[[IPv6-redacted]] port 33008 ssh2: ED25519 
a2:ab:68:aa:e9:fe:f7:8b:06:93:59:92:23:e8:32:13
    Dec  4 20:24:18 vcs0 sshd[8774]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for 
user ttn by (uid=0)
    Dec  4 20:24:20 vcs0 sshd[8793]: Received disconnect from 
[[IPv6-redacted]]: 11: disconnected by user
    Dec  4 20:24:20 vcs0 sshd[8774]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session closed for 
user ttn

    Dec  4 20:24:26 vcs0 sshd[8813]: Postponed publickey for ttn from 
[[IPv6-redacted]] port 33010 ssh2 [preauth]
    Dec  4 20:24:26 vcs0 sshd[8813]: Accepted publickey for ttn from 
[[IPv6-redacted]] port 33010 ssh2: ED25519 
a2:ab:68:aa:e9:fe:f7:8b:06:93:59:92:23:e8:32:13
    Dec  4 20:24:26 vcs0 sshd[8813]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for 
user ttn by (uid=0)
    Dec  4 20:24:27 vcs0 sshd[8832]: Received disconnect from 
[[IPv6-redacted]]: 11: disconnected by user
    Dec  4 20:24:27 vcs0 sshd[8813]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session closed for 
user ttn

It looks like it is working on the server end.  Because it says
"session opened for user ttn" and hten later "session closed for user
ttn".  Which says that you were able to authenticate.  It doesn't
think things are failing.  It thinks things are working.  On the
server side.

I would walk through the other debugging steps that are listed on the
SshAccess page.  Hopefully doing that will provide a clue as to the problem.

    https://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/SshAccess/

If nothing turns up then we might need to arrange a time when more
detailed debugging on both sides can be done.

Bob

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