> as root, an "rcsshd start" prints a red "failed". > I tried running sshd directly from the command line. It returns > immediately. No messages, no sshd running, nothing. I set the LogLevel > to the maximum debug, and used strace to see what sshd was doing. > Nothing looked out of the ordinary. It just doesn't work.
Something's corrupt. rcsshd is the correct interactive way to the service script (most of the /ec/init.d/.../<service> have a shortcut rc<service> in root's path. Sure saves a lot of typing). Yast only enables or disables the service in the runlevels. It may refuse to start if the port it's supposed to listen on is already bound. A failure when running sshd from the command line is very suspicious (assuming it's not already running). It returning immediately may just mean the daemon backgrounded itself. Check the package's files against the md5s stored in the package database, with rpm -V openssh; this shows any corrupted files. Obviously it guards against malicious attacks on binaries only if the checksums in the package data base (or the rpm binary) haven't been tampered with. If it outright fails then there's something very basic wrong. If it exits because the port is already bound to there should be a syslog entry. Sure your hardware is ok? Unless the newer openssh has features you must have, don't bother compiling from source because it neither helps you find the problem nor help you solve it. Don't worry about security, SuSE takes care of that for you (just as does any other distro worth mentioning). Obviously you have the latest security updates installed, esp those related to ssh, ssl, or the kernel. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is possibly list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
