SOLVED:
I show below both the "ssh" problem that arose and its solution.
I upgraded ssh to version 3.4p1-0.0potato1 from within Debian's potato
distribution to get the final potato versions and security updates
(before I upgrade to woody, and then to sarge, neither of which enters
into this problem).
When I tried "slogin" to another computer without booting,
I got the response,
Authentication response too long: 1433299822
Adding debugging, "slogin -v", I see,
debug1: authentications that can continue: publickey
debug1: next auth method to try is publickey
Authentication response too long: 1433299822
I then stopped and started the ssh process,
/etc/init.d/ssh stop
/etc/init.d/ssh start
This indeed killed the process "sshd".
However, "slogin" still produced the error
Authentication response too long: 1433299822
and still couldn't slogin.
I noticed that the following user process still ran from my xdm login,
/usr/bin/ssh-agent /home/burtji/.xsession
corresponding to the ssh-agent
15003 /usr/bin/enlightenment
and I noticed that my previous "ssh-add" had created
/tmp/ssh-igu15003/agent.15003=
Killing the "ssh-agent" process started under enlightenment,
150032 15003 /usr/bin/ssh-agent /home/burtji/.xsession,
I could again use "slogin", although I needed to enter the passphrase.
Indeed, all along I could "slogin" from the virtual terminal F2.
In conclusion, upgrading "ssh" left a vestige "ssh-agent" that no
longer co-operated with sshd.
I could only get "slogin" working properly by
restarting my user X-windows session.
So, with "xdm" still running,
I had to log out, log back into a new X-windows
session (less harsh than a "reboot"),
and run ssh-add.
This was a benign problem that would have disappeared on reboot.
Google turned up only 1 link for the following search,
slogin "Authentication response too long: 1433299822"
and that link didn't solve my problem.
Since this took me 2 hours to solve,
I have enter the problem and solution here.
--
Jameson C. Burt, NJ9L Fairfax, Virginia, USA
jameson@coost.com http://www.coost.com
(202) 690-0380 (work)
LTSP.org: magic "mysterious and awe-inspiring even though
we know they are real and not supernatural"
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