Hi again, first thanks to all those trying to help. Okay, I checked some things, here is the result: -I checked /etc/sshd_config. Nothing unusual. Allowed is only RSA-Authentication, the rest is left as was. -The machine is connected via router, but that doesn't matter, as I can acces the machine with ssh using _my_ key. I just can't access using the key from the user which should get access. - The file identity.pub was copied to authorized_keys, so this should work. - It was copied being the user itself (via su), so permissions should be correct. - No entries in /etc/sshd_config in the sections AllowHosts and DenyHosts. - I also checked my hosts.allow and hosts.deny - files. Nothing in there what could cause the problem. - BTW: The clock was set wrong on myclient. I forgot to set it correct after making a bios-update. Thanks for the tip. Okay, here are the file-permissions: drwxr-xr-x . drwxrwxr-x .. (it's okay that the group has full access) -rw -r--r-- authorized_keys -rw------- identity -rw-r--r-- identity.pub -rw------- random_seed And this is the message when using ssh -v: Trying RSA authentication with key 'xxx' Remote: Bad file modes for /~_USERDIR_/. / Server refused our key. Permission denied. What comes to my mind: I set up a chroot for ftp-accesses, thats why the dir is set to ~_USERDIR_/. / Maybe this is something important ??? But should not, as the /. / at the end just means that the user cannot escape from his homedir with ftp... Okay, any ideas what is wrong ??? TIA. ---Stephan