Disable passwords in SSHD Cygwin

I am running the Cygwin SSHD server on a machine and have been seeing
lots of attacks lately from all over the globe. so i generated a public
/ private key set and applied them correctly and now i connect properly
using these new keys. i then went into the file "cygwin\etc
\sshd_config" and set the following lines

# To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
#PasswordAuthentication no
#PermitEmptyPasswords no

the attacks continued so i tried a test. i moved the keys i just
generated to a dummy folder and then tried to connect to the machine
hosting the server

$ ssh localhost

to my surprise it asked for a password

so i went back to the file "cygwin\etc\sshd_config" and sure enough i
find this

# To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
#PasswordAuthentication yes <-------its still set to yes?
#PermitEmptyPasswords no

so i then looked at the folder holding the file and found that there are
now 2 files "cygwin\etc\sshd_config" and "cygwin\etc\sshd_config~" the
one with the ~ char at the end is owned by the loged in user and the one
without the ~ char is owned by the system. the one owned by the system
is the one where the password is still set to yes. every time i edit and
save the file it creates a new file with more and more ~ chars at the
end. what in the world is going on? i made sure to chmod 777 the file
to edit it then chmoded it back to 644. nothing seems to work and in the
mean time im getting massive attacks in the night from IP's all over the
world. I have hardend my password and there not succeeding but it still
is unnerving to see your security logs fill up like that

am i going about it the wrong way trying to edit my "cygwin\etc
\sshd_config" file? is there a command i need to run to make this change
permenant?

thanks in advance for the help
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Disable passwords in SSHD Cygwin
    ... >I am running the Cygwin SSHD server on a machine and have been seeing ... with ssh - either you can't operate your editor, or something Windowsy ... >without the ~ char is owned by the system. ... >am i going about it the wrong way trying to edit my "cygwin\etc ...
    (comp.security.ssh)
  • Re: Disable passwords in SSHD Cygwin
    ... if i remove the keys to a dummy directory and try ... learned but im tired of the brute force attacks on my host. ... > the one without the ~ char is owned by the system. ... > chmod 777 the file to edit it then chmoded it back to 644. ...
    (comp.security.ssh)