> with a working SSH client I see this message before each prompt: > > Postponed keyboard-interactive for ... > > whereas I see the following message before the second prompt when using PuTTY: > > Failed keyboard-interactive/pam for ... That's good detective work. It seems that PAM doesn't want you to try a password more than once? Have a look in /etc/pam.d/ssh and see if you can find the reason.