oh my, and i thought i was down with ssh. scenario: client running openssh 2.1.1 protocol 2 3 servers (madduck, sccs, sirius) running ssh 1.2.27 protocol 1.5 3 servers (ceylon, uriel, localhost) running openssh 2.1.1 protocol 2 user on client has an rsa ssh key which is included in authorized_keys in ~/.ssh on each of the server machines. in all 6 cases, ~/.ssh is drwx------ with all files in the directory being -rw-------. the home directory itself is either drwx------ or drwx--x--x. the client can connect to the two 1.2.27 hosts madduck and sccs with rsa authentication perfectly. authorized_keys is the same on all 5 hosts. but sirius (1.2.27) as well as the three 2.1.1 hosts ceylon, uriel, and localhost cannot be connected to. more elaborately, i am madduck@localhost here are the users on the 6 servers which have madduck@localhost's identity.pub in their authorized_keys: ssh version rsa works? madduck@sccs 1.2.27 yes madduck@uriel 2.1.1 no madduck@sirius 1.2.27 no madduck@madduck 1.2.27 yes madduck@ceylon 2.1.1 no testuser@localhost 2.1.1 no i don't really see a pattern... and since not all machines are mine, i won't post sshd_config. however, localhost and madduck are mine, so at the end of the email, please find the three significant ssh*_config files. in the four cases of rsa works=no above, ssh asks for the password directly. in the two yes cases, if i used ssh-add before, it just connects, otherwise it prompts for the rsa passphrase instead of the password. any ideas? gratefully appreciated! martin ssh_config@localhost: ======== Host * ForwardAgent yes ForwardX11 yes RhostsAuthentication no RhostsRSAAuthentication yes RSAAuthentication yes TISAuthentication no PasswordAuthentication yes FallBackToRsh no UseRsh no BatchMode no CheckHostIP yes StrictHostKeyChecking no IdentityFile ~/.ssh/identity Port 22 Protocol 2,1 Cipher 3des EscapeChar ~ ======== sshd_config@localhost: ======== Port 22 ListenAddress 0.0.0.0 HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key ServerKeyBits 768 LoginGraceTime 600 KeyRegenerationInterval 3600 PermitRootLogin yes IgnoreRhosts yes StrictModes yes X11Forwarding yes X11DisplayOffset 10 PrintMotd yes KeepAlive yes SyslogFacility AUTH LogLevel INFO RhostsAuthentication no RhostsRSAAuthentication yes RSAAuthentication yes PasswordAuthentication yes PermitEmptyPasswords no UseLogin no CheckMail no ========= sshd_config@madduck: ========= Port 22 ListenAddress 0.0.0.0 HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key RandomSeed /etc/ssh/ssh_random_seed ServerKeyBits 768 LoginGraceTime 600 KeyRegenerationInterval 3600 PermitRootLogin yes IgnoreRhosts no StrictModes yes QuietMode no X11Forwarding yes X11DisplayOffset 10 FascistLogging no PrintMotd yes KeepAlive yes SyslogFacility DAEMON RhostsAuthentication no RhostsRSAAuthentication yes RSAAuthentication yes PasswordAuthentication yes PermitEmptyPasswords yes UseLogin no IdleTimeout 1h ========= [greetings from the heart of the sun]# echo madduck@!#:1:s@\@@@.net -- nobody expects the spanish inquisition.