ssh error: ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

[saturn-vk]

I am having a lot of trouble with ssh on one of my machines.

whenever I try to access it, I get this:

saturn_vk@sat:~$ ssh sat
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host


I can only connect when I remove this line from hosts.deny:

ALL:ALL


however, I have no idea why it only works when I remove it, since I also have this line in my hosts.allow:

sshd: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0


To my knowledge every connection is first checked against hosts.allow, and then to hosts.deny, not the other way around.
Can anyone fill me in to what I'm missing?

[ph34r]

the hosts.allow/deny files control who can connect to stuff spawned from inetd/xinetd. SSH should run as a stand-alone daemon... are there lines for ssh in /etc/inetd.conf (or xinetd.conf)? When you run "ps ax" do you see an instance of sshd running?

[saturn-vk]

Originally posted by ph34r
the hosts.allow/deny files control who can connect to stuff spawned from inetd/xinetd. SSH should run as a stand-alone daemon... are there lines for ssh in /etc/inetd.conf (or xinetd.conf)? When you run "ps ax" do you see an instance of sshd running?


saturn_vk@sat:~$ ps aux | grep sshd
root 628 0.0 0.1 3044 1392 ? S 13:30 0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd



saturn_vk@sat:~$ cat /etc/inetd.conf | grep ssh
saturn_vk@sat:~$


so how do I remedy the problem
ssh is started with rc.sshd as in all slackware systems.