Unable to SSH from Windows client to Ubuntu Server

Applications IP Networking
1

I'm trying to setup a small home network environment as a pet project. These are physical machines nothing virtual. Any help or ideas is greatly appreciated.

I can ping between both machines and I have Samba established and can read/write different shares. When I try to SSH from Windows 8.1 client to Peppermint 3 system I get the following pop-up

 PuttY Fatal Error: Server unexpectedly closed network connection

ssh is running

service ssh status
ssh start/running, process 6083

listening on port 22

ss -lnp | grep ssh
LISTEN     0      128                      :::22                      :::*      users:(("sshd",6083,4))
LISTEN     0      128                       *:22                       *:*      users:(("sshd",6083,3))

iptables -L

Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination         

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination         

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination

cat /etc/network/interfaces

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.1.50
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.1
2

Can the Peppermint system ssh to itself?

3

Yes

user5@Peppermint ~/.ssh $ ssh peppermint
The authenticity of host 'peppermint (127.0.1.1)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is 17:a7:c9:f1:36:a8:e6:6e:e7:43:fb:72:9a:5a:c2:e6.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'peppermint' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
user5@peppermint's password: 
Welcome to Peppermint Three (GNU/Linux 3.2.0-52-generic i686)

 * Documentation:  http://peppermintos.com/guide/

6 packages can be updated.
6 updates are security updates.




The programs included with the Peppermint system are free software
except as noted in the individual package documentation; the exact
distribution terms for each program are described in the individual
files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Peppermint comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.

user5@Peppermint ~ $ logout
Connection to peppermint closed.
4

Is it running a firewall?

5

In addition to the previous post have you added anything to /etc/hosts.deny?

6

CAn both hosts ssh to their own full domain name, not localhost/IP? Do both IPs reverse lookup from the other end?

7

I have uninstalled the firewall from the linux server and disabled the windows firewall

---------- Post updated at 07:25 PM ---------- Previous update was at 07:24 PM ----------

only uncommented line in /etc/hosts.deny is this:

ALL: ALL

---------- Post updated at 07:28 PM ---------- Previous update was at 07:25 PM ----------

There isn't a domain. This is a private home network, I have a workgroup setup. In the smb.conf file I have the workgroup defined.

8

Having ALL:ALL in your /etc/hosts/deny file means deny any ip address that is not in the allow file. You should make sure that the IP address of the machine you are connecting from is in the /etc/hosts.allow file, and possibly the entire subnet. You can also just comment out the ALL: ALL line in /etc/hosts/deny.

9

Interesting that makes sense. I'll look into it tonight. I have a question though, why is it that I can access Samba shares on my windows client attached to the linux server?

10

I don't know, it might be because it uses a different configuration file. Just search for hosts.deny.

https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/using_samba/ch06.html

11

Can you try and open a terminal and run

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Exec\putty.exe" -v -ssh user@192.168.x.x

Where "user" is the peppermint user you're targeting and replace 192.168.x.x with the network address of the targeted computer.

Then just post the output and we may then see where the problem comes from.