Putty and ESX 3.0

[jamesmcniel]

I just installed ESX 3.0 and VC 2.0 for the first time to start playing with it. I'm having an issue though trying to putty to the machine. As soon as putty tries to connect it immediately just closes. I get no error or anything to indicate why this is happening. I can putty just fine from my machine to any of the ESX 2.5.x boxes.

Also, when I telnet to the SSH port, it is in fact listening. Anybody experience this problem or have any ideas of what I could try to fix it? VMWare won't give me any support on 3.0 yet.

[skchaw]

SSH2

[RobMokkink]

do a service iptables restart

[rhysmcmurdo]

Not that I know anything about ESX 3, but it sounds like a key exchange issue with Putty given the following:

\* You can connect to port 22 (Not firewall)

\* You can use Winscp (Not /etc/hosts.allow)

So the only thing I can think of is if putty is using keys that are being denied. Check /var/log/secure & /var/log/messages on the ESX host for clues..

You can also try removing all of the putty related files? (I don't know where it stores it's keys as I am no expert)..

[jamesmcniel]

Tried the service iptables restart with no luck. I just rebuilt the server with a clean install, enabled the root login from the sshd_config file and am still having no luck with putty to this machine. Again, the two machines I have been trying this from are having no issue with putty on any of my 2.5.3 boxes.

[jamesmcniel]

Have tried it using both SSH1 and SSH2 with no luck.

[kix1979]

Any warning messages in your /var/log/messages? Maybe time for a reinstall if nothing else is on the host right now.

[jamesmcniel]

the /var/log/messages file contains the following;

sshd\[1434]: Address family not supported by protocol

That is the only thing I saw that looked like it may be an indication of what's going on.

[rhysmcmurdo]

Do you have X11 Forwarding setup in Putty?

http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0009.1/0386.html

Although old, could be a cause of the issue. Try changing X11Forwarding to no in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and reloading sshd and see how it goes

[andrew_hald]

rhysmcmurdo seems to have the right idea with turning off X11 forwarding.

http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0009.1/0286.html

[PepeVM]

Are we sure there is no net problem? Seems like it's impossible to telnet the machine at all!!!

[jamesmcniel]

The line in the sshd_config file relating to X11Forwarding was already commented out by default.

Keep in mind I have rebuilt this server, and done absolutely nothing further with regards to configuration of the server.

[rhysmcmurdo]

Commenting the line out only reverts to default behaviour

Try setting it to no and see how you go..

Do you have X11 Forwarding setup in Putty?

[hicksj · Accepted solution]

Which version of Putty are you using?

Download the latest and try again please.

Putty will exit without warning if no cipher can be negotiated, which happens with older versions of Putty & ESX3.

Regards,

J

[eliot]

Was having a similar problem yesterday with an old copy of Fsecure SSH client.

A fresh install of ESX insists on AES ciphers, esx 2.5.x didn't. Intrestingly, Ive just tried the same old ssh client against a 2.5.x esx which was upgraded to 3.0 and it still works ok - so I gues you can comment out the ciphers line on the last line of /etc/ssh/sshd_config (dont have a vanilla 3.x box to try against until tommorow)

[Illaire]

You should run the latest PuTTY, and I would advise you to reset PuTTY's default settings (Open connection, select "Default Settings" and hit delete).

Some suggestions if it fails:

\- Open your connection with "Close window on exit" set to "Never" or "Only on clean exit"

\- ESX 3 default ciphers are aes256-cbc with fallback to aes128-cbc. Allow this ciphers in configuration: Configuration > SSH.

\- Select protocol version 2 (ESX won't allow version 1)

\- Connect to ESX

\- have a look at the Event Log: right click on the title bar of Putty, then select Event Log

\- Post the event log here

If you're still unluckly with PuTTY, you could try with http://sshwindows.sourceforge.net/ althougth this would really be surprising. PuTTY is so pleasant it should be illegal \^_^

[jamesmcniel]

That was the issue. I was using an older version of putty that apparently was compatible with 2.5.x, but not 3.0.

Thanks everyone for the help!!

Which version of Putty are you using?

Download the latest and try again please.

Putty will exit without warning if no cipher can be

negotiated, which happens with older versions of

Putty & ESX3.

Regards,

J

[hicksj]

Awesome! I had the same problem a while back on one of my systems (but not another) and I noticed I had a fairly old version of putty compared to the one that was working...

Looks like you went through a lot of trouble for nothing. Sorry it took me until three pages of suggestions were proposed to check out your thread

Regards,

J

[multirotor]

Same problem here. Thanks !

[Paul_Lalonde]

From a Windows machine, what happens if you TELNET to the SSH port on your ESX Server?

ie. telnet 192.168.0.10 22

If SSHD is listening on the ESX box, you'll get an SSH banner:

SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_3.6.1p2

If you don't get it, then SSHD isn't binding to that IP address. Do you have more than one service console network?

Paul

[multirotor]

I got the OpenSSH banner.

It's just a matter of using the old Putty version with the new ESX.

I downloaded the new Putty and it works perfectly.