ubuntu - Loggin in ssh server: Permission denied, please try again

I'm trying to login to my ssh server using a username and password, but I get this error after entering the correct password:

Permission denied, please try again.

I can login using a pubkey on another machine, though, but I have NOT disabled regular password authentication. The only thing I disabled was root logins.

Here's my sshd_config file:

# Package generated configuration file
# See the sshd_config(5) manpage for details

# What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for
Port 22
# Use these options to restrict which interfaces/protocols sshd will bind to
#ListenAddress ::
#ListenAddress 0.0.0.0

Protocol 2
# HostKeys for protocol version 2
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
#Privilege Separation is turned on for security
UsePrivilegeSeparation yes

# Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key
KeyRegenerationInterval 3600

ServerKeyBits 768

# Logging
SyslogFacility AUTH
LogLevel INFO

# Authentication:
LoginGraceTime 120
PermitRootLogin no
StrictModes yes


RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
#AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys

# Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files
IgnoreRhosts yes
# For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh_known_hosts

RhostsRSAAuthentication no

# similar for protocol version 2
HostbasedAuthentication no
# Uncomment if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for RhostsRSAAuthentication
#IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes

# To enable empty passwords, change to yes (NOT RECOMMENDED)
PermitEmptyPasswords no

# Change to yes to enable challenge-response passwords (beware issues with
# some PAM modules and threads)

ChallengeResponseAuthentication no

# Change to no to disable tunnelled clear text passwords
PasswordAuthentication yes

# Kerberos options 
#KerberosAuthentication no
#KerberosGetAFSToken no
#KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes
#KerberosTicketCleanup yes


# GSSAPI options
#GSSAPIAuthentication no
#GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes

X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
PrintMotd no
PrintLastLog yes
TCPKeepAlive yes

#UseLogin no

#MaxStartups 10:30:60 
#Banner /etc/issue.net

# Allow client to pass locale environment variables
AcceptEnv LANG LC_*

Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server


# Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing,
# and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will
# be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication and
# PasswordAuthentication. Depending on your PAM configuration,
# PAM authentication via ChallengeResponseAuthentication may bypass
# the setting of "PermitRootLogin without-password".
# If you just want the PAM account and session checks to run without
# PAM authentication, then enable this but set PasswordAuthentication
# and ChallengeResponseAuthentication to 'no'.
UsePAM yes 

IgnoreUserKnownHosts no
PasswordAuthentication yes

I've added the last 2 lines in a latest attempt at getting it to work. (I have them on my other vps, and they work there)

Here's the listing of the ~/.ssh/ directory of my user:

ls -la /home/skerit/.ssh

total 16
drwx------ 2 skerit skerit 4096 2011-06-25 15:11 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 skerit skerit 4096 2011-07-07 21:05 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 skerit skerit 1882 2011-06-25 15:15 authorized_keys
-rw-r--r-- 1 skerit skerit 884 2011-06-23 22:59 known_hosts 

This is the output of /usr/sbin/sshd -d:

debug1: userauth-request for user skerit service ssh-connection method none
debug1: attempt 0 failures 0
debug1: PAM: initializing for "skerit"
debug1: PAM: setting PAM_RHOST to "82.197.70.70"
debug1: PAM: setting PAM_TTY to "ssh"
debug1: userauth-request for user skerit service ssh-connection method publickey
debug1: attempt 1 failures 0
debug1: test whether pkalg/pkblob are acceptable
debug1: Checking blacklist file /usr/share/ssh/blacklist.RSA-2048
debug1: Checking blacklist file /etc/ssh/blacklist.RSA-2048

debug1: temporarily_use_uid: 1000/1000 (e=0/0)
debug1: trying public key file /home/skerit/.ssh/authorized_keys
debug1: fd 4 clearing O_NONBLOCK
debug1: restore_uid: 0/0
debug1: temporarily_use_uid: 1000/1000 (e=0/0)
debug1: trying public key file /home/skerit/.ssh/authorized_keys2
debug1: Could not open authorized keys '/home/skerit/.ssh/authorized_keys2': No such file or directory
debug1: restore_uid: 0/0
Failed publickey for skerit from 82.197.70.70 port 57154 ssh2
debug1: userauth-request for user skerit service ssh-connection method password

debug1: attempt 2 failures 1
debug1: PAM: password authentication failed for skerit: Authentication failure
Failed password for skerit from 82.197.70.70 port 57154 ssh2 

I then tried to login to the ssh server FROM the ssh server (locally) using THE SAME username and password, and it worked. This was in the auth.log file:

Jul 8 12:21:50 vpsnl1 sshd[27298]: debug1: could not open key file '/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key': No such file or directory
Jul 8 12:21:50 vpsnl1 sshd[27298]: error: Could not load host key: /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key

Jul 8 12:22:16 vpsnl1 sshd[27298]: pam_unix(sshd:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty=ssh ruser= rhost=82.197.70.70 user=
skerit
Jul 8 12:23:50 vpsnl1 sshd[27439]: Server listening on 0.0.0.0 port 22.
Jul 8 12:23:50 vpsnl1 sshd[27439]: Server listening on :: port 22.
Jul 8 12:24:07 vpsnl1 sshd[27458]: error: Could not load host key: /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
Jul 8 12:24:14 vpsnl1 sshd[27458]: Accepted password for skerit from 127.0.0.1 port 57667 ssh2
Jul 8 12:24:14 vpsnl1 sshd[27458]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user skerit by (uid=0)
Jul 8 12:24:25 vpsnl1 sshd[27471]: Received disconnect from 127.0.0.1: 11: disconnected by user
Jul 8 12:24:25 vpsnl1 sshd[27458]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session closed for user skerit 

Answer

Are you certain that the user account you're attempting to access is correctly configured? If you log in as root on the system, can you su to the user account?

# su - username

What do you see in your logs after a failed connection attempt? On many systems, sshd will log to something /var/log/secure or /var/log/auth.log. Also, I note that you have PasswordAuthentication enabled but ChallengeResponseAuthentication disabled. Do you see the same behavior if you enable ChallengeResponseAuthentication?

Here are some general diagnostic steps to use when you have ssh problems:

• Enable verbose diagnostics in ssh:

  
  
  

  ssh -v host.example.com
  

  
  
  

  This will cause the client to output a variety of diagnostic messages as it negotiates the connection. This will often provide a clue to the problem.




• Run the server in debug mode.

  
  
  

  On your server, stop sshd, then run it from the command line like this:

  
  
  
  

  /usr/sbin/sshd -d
  

  
  
  

  This will produce verbose debug logging on stderr that will very often contain useful information.

If neither of these helps you figure out what's going on, would you add the output to your question?