passwort authentication works fine but public keys drive me nuts...

From: Armin (google_at_scharlach.com)
Date: 08/17/04 

Date: 17 Aug 2004 14:36:04 -0700

Hi,
I tried for a couple of hours to find out, what the reason it but couldn't
find a solution:

I have a notebook (WinXP Pro), on which I installed OpenSSH (V3.8.1., client
only). Then there is a server (W2K), on which I installed OpenSSH (V 3.8.1,
server).

I created the group and the password file on the server as told in the
readme.

I can establish a connection from my notebook to the server using password
authentification.

But now I would like to overcome the need of keying in a password. I created
keyfiles on the client using ssh-keygen (during my first attempt I used -t
rsa as an argument, then I tried the dsa keys as well).
As the notebook is (at the moment) the only "user" I copied the id_rsa.pub
file to the server (to %home/.ssh) and renamed the file to authorized_keys

I changed the sshd_config as follows

PubkeyAuthentication yes
AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys

In addition I tried both RSAAuthentication yes / no and StrictModes no
/yes

However, if I try to login now having the debugger switched on I see that
for whatever reason the login using the key files doesn't work and I still
have to key in the password.

Again, I sincerely hope for your help as I have tried for hours and hours to
get this work. Thanks a lot in advance!

C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Armin>ssh -v combinenet@192.168.2.8
OpenSSH_3.8.1p1, OpenSSL 0.9.7d 17 Mar 2004
debug1: Connecting to 192.168.2.8 [192.168.2.8] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /home/Armin/.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /home/Armin/.ssh/id_rsa type 1
debug1: identity file /home/Armin/.ssh/id_dsa type 2
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_3.8.1p1
debug1: match: OpenSSH_3.8.1p1 pat OpenSSH*
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_3.8.1p1
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: server->client aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none
debug1: kex: client->server aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY
debug1: Host '192.168.2.8' is known and matches the RSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /home/Armin/.ssh/known_hosts:2
debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received

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debug1: Authentications that can continue:
publickey,password,keyboard-interacti
ve
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /home/Armin/.ssh/identity
debug1: Offering public key: /home/Armin/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Authentications that can continue:
publickey,password,keyboard-interacti
ve
debug1: Offering public key: /home/Armin/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: Authentications that can continue:
publickey,password,keyboard-interacti
ve
debug1: Next authentication method: keyboard-interactive
debug1: Authentications that can continue:
publickey,password,keyboard-interacti
ve
debug1: Next authentication method: password
combinenet@192.168.2.8's password: