Default install of SSH disables password authentication
I just deleted my previous installation of Woody and reinstalled, because so
many packages had to be updated. Apparently, the default of SSH now
disables password authentication on install (in /etc/ssh/sshd_config)
This is something of a problem, because the Windows SSH client of Secure
Shell Communications Security Corp (www.ssh.com) can't connect to a default
install of SSH on Debian 3.0 without uploading a public key. That's the
only client I tested, but I suspect that a lot of other clients won't be
able to handle it either. Apparently PAM authentication is supposed to take
the place of password authentication (I don't know anything about PAM so I'm
not sure this is accurate, please correct me if I'm wrong), but it doesn't
seem to work with this client at least
At least, I couldn't get it to connect. And I had a lot of trouble finding
the problem (that is, that password authentication was disabled) because the
previous version didn't disable it by default.
Has anyone else noticed this? It could present problems unless a dialog or
something is added to the configuration process to inform the user that
password authentication is disabled. Also, if someone could explain how PAM
authentication should work for SSH, I would appreciate it.
-Andrew Gorcester (andrewsg@u.washington.edu)
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