[techtalk] Not letting me login via ssh

[Kath]

This has me scared to death.   I come home, try to ssh into my Debian box and it will not accept my user password.  So I walk over to the box, where I'm logged in as root, type in passwd kath and try setting it back to my normal password.  Still won't work when I try to login via ssh :|   I'm very scared to reboot the box, fearing that I might not be able to get back in.   What should I do?   - Kath, the bewildered