Re: [cobalt-users] Open SSH and Telnet problems [RaQ3]

["Nico Meijer" <nico.meijer@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

> A few months ago I had to deal with the infamous timeout problem of the
> telnet login prompt, the question has been asked in this list many times
and
> yet no one has ever repied with a solution or explanation.

The reverse lookup struck me as a pretty good explanation, but you probably
already tackled that. Then, I don't know, apart from the standard "Don't do
telnet!" message.

> Upon the first occurence of this phenomenon the simple solution was to
> install OpenSSH and shut down telnet altogether.  That solutions was
perfect
> until I did an upgrade that required a reboot, after the reboot port 22
for
> the OpenSSH was nowhere to be found, since Telnet was not working either I
> was shut out with no access to the shell.

How did you install openssh? rpm & pkg (basically the same) install openssh
with the daemon turned on in runlevel 3.
You can check and alter via the 'chkconfig' command.

> Even so, there was no satisfactory explanation for either event.

That depends on how you installed in the first place.

> Yesterday after applying an overdue upgrade the machine rebooted and shut
> the port 22 for OpenSSH again.  Once again, no access.

Definitely do a 'man chkconfig'!

Is portsentry looking at port 22, btw?

> I did find a mention in the list to the fact that one had to manually link
> /etc/rc.d/init.d/ssh to /etc/rc3.d and some other ones.  This seems like a
> likely explanation for the port not showing up on reboot.  Yet it would
seem
> like an unlikely thing to leave out of a publicly available package.

Yes, that does sound odd. My experience is that it is not missing (using
rpm). My two cents.

> 1)  What is causing OpenSSH to shut down on reboot?

Bad runlevel config? I'd rather not go into wild guesses without some more
clues.

> 2)  What's the problem with the Telnet prompt?

What *isn't*? Forget about that prompt.

> 3)  Is there any way to issue shell commands as root from somewhere else?
> (cgis through port 81, etc)

Probably. I know of a standard Webmin module, which can be used over SSL,
but there are probably many more.

> Nothing funny installed aside from OpenSSH
> and PHP/Mysql, and some security stuff like Logcheck, Portsentry and other
> basic security stuff.

What so funny about that? ;-)

Good luck... Nico