port 22: Connection refused always...

[tdheff]

Hi, I am trying to set up an ssh server on my home computer so that I can access it from work. I forwarded port 22 from my router (apple airport extreme) and got my rsa keys ready and thought I was going to be good to go until I checked my server ($ ssh localhost) and got the message:

ssh: connect to host localhost port 22: Connection refused

I tried to open the ports on my firewall (using firestarter) and I looked this up but no one's solutions seemed to work for me.

Please help!

[VH-BIL]

There are 4 possible things causing this.

1) Port forwarding in your router is incorrect.
2) Firewall issues.
3) ssh server is not running.
4) ssh is set to a different port.

When trying it locally it would be one of the last 3.

[tdheff]

"ps aux | grep ssh" returns:

root 916 0.0 0.0 5548 912 ? Ss 18:17 0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
tommy 2190 0.0 0.0 3280 360 ? Ss 18:18 0:00 /usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session gnome-session
tommy 2853 0.0 0.0 3324 888 pts/0 S+ 19:04 0:00 grep --color=auto ssh

"cat /etc/services | grep 22" returns:

ssh 22/tcp # SSH Remote Login Protocol
ssh 22/udp

Does that help a diagnosis?

[VH-BIL]

Have you tried:
ssh 127.0.0.1
ssh <Your IP>

If you are behind a firewall you can try uninstalling it to check if that is the problem (then reinstall it if you like).

[Iowan]

It might help if you could post /etc/ssh/ssh_config and /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Does machine have static or DHCP address. There's another thread around (somewhere) that mentions SSH being picky about permissions of some directories...

[tdheff]

The ip address is static. On an interesting note, /etc/init.d/sshd does not exist.

# Package generated configuration file
# See the sshd_config(5) manpage for details

# What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for
Port 7777
# Use these options to restrict which interfaces/protocols sshd will bind to
#ListenAddress ::
#ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
Protocol 2
# HostKeys for protocol version 2
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
#Privilege Separation is turned on for security
UsePrivilegeSeparation yes

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

# Logging
SyslogFacility AUTH
LogLevel INFO

# Authentication:
LoginGraceTime 120
PermitRootLogin yes
StrictModes yes

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

# Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files
IgnoreRhosts yes
# For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh_known_hosts
RhostsRSAAuthentication no
# similar for protocol version 2
HostbasedAuthentication no
# Uncomment if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for RhostsRSAAuthentication
#IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes

# To enable empty passwords, change to yes (NOT RECOMMENDED)
PermitEmptyPasswords no

# Change to yes to enable challenge-response passwords (beware issues with
# some PAM modules and threads)
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no

# Change to no to disable tunnelled clear text passwords
#PasswordAuthentication yes

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

# GSSAPI options
#GSSAPIAuthentication no
#GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes

X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
PrintMotd no
PrintLastLog yes
TCPKeepAlive yes
#UseLogin no

#MaxStartups 10:30:60
#Banner /etc/issue.net

# Allow client to pass locale environment variables
AcceptEnv LANG LC_*

Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server

# Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing,
# and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will
# be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication and
# PasswordAuthentication. Depending on your PAM configuration,
# PAM authentication via ChallengeResponseAuthentication may bypass
# the setting of "PermitRootLogin without-password".
# If you just want the PAM account and session checks to run without
# PAM authentication, then enable this but set PasswordAuthentication
# and ChallengeResponseAuthentication to 'no'.
UsePAM yes

# This is the ssh client system-wide configuration file. See
# ssh_config(5) for more information. This file provides defaults for
# users, and the values can be changed in per-user configuration files
# or on the command line.

# Configuration data is parsed as follows:
# 1. command line options
# 2. user-specific file
# 3. system-wide file
# Any configuration value is only changed the first time it is set.
# Thus, host-specific definitions should be at the beginning of the
# configuration file, and defaults at the end.

# Site-wide defaults for some commonly used options. For a comprehensive
# list of available options, their meanings and defaults, please see the
# ssh_config(5) man page.

Host *
# ForwardAgent no
# ForwardX11 no
# ForwardX11Trusted yes
# RhostsRSAAuthentication no
# RSAAuthentication yes
# PasswordAuthentication yes
# HostbasedAuthentication no
# GSSAPIAuthentication no
# GSSAPIDelegateCredentials no
# GSSAPIKeyExchange no
# GSSAPITrustDNS no
# BatchMode no
# CheckHostIP yes
# AddressFamily any
# ConnectTimeout 0
# StrictHostKeyChecking ask
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/identity
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_dsa
Port 22
# Protocol 2,1
# Cipher 3des
# Ciphers aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,arcfour256,arcfour128,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc
# MACs hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,umac-64@openssh.com,hmac-ripemd160
# EscapeChar ~
# Tunnel no
# TunnelDevice any:any
# PermitLocalCommand no
# VisualHostKey no
SendEnv LANG LC_*
HashKnownHosts yes
GSSAPIAuthentication yes
GSSAPIDelegateCredentials no

[Iowan]

The server is listening on port 7777, but the client is using port 22?

[tdheff]

That solved it! I changed that and the ServerBitsKey to 1024 and it worked fine.

[itagomo]

please post steps ..