RE:remote ssh denied

> Thanks, Jim.
>
> I'm not in the US, and it's going to be quite a long while
> before we have a holiday .... and no prizes for guessing
> what I'll be doing while some individuals on
> this list are going to be drinking beers and munching
> hotdogs ;)
>
> B.T.W. I forgot to mention the /etc/securetty file.
> I wonder if that's what is causing it? This file
> looks like it is used to restrict root logins, but I
> am not sure how it's logic works, or whether I need to
> send a SIGHUP to some bloomin' daemon after editing
> it. The file contains a list terminal devices, so probably
> these are the terminals it (accepts?) root logins from.
>
> Interestingly, the /etc/securetty file on my
> RH 7.1 server contains tty1 thru to 8, but I can
> still use PuTTY to access it remotely. As per usual, this
> server was set up by someone else, and it's
> our (my) job to administer it.
>
> Jason
>

My first guess was that a remote putty session would use a tty, but on my
system, instead of tty#, it is using pts/#.  (I did a ps -ax to see this).
Interesting.  So much for gut instinct.  I checked my own /etc/securetty, but
there was no mention of any "pts".  "man securetty" says the file is used by
login() to specify which terminals root can log into.

Personally, I disallow direct login as root through ssh.  However, once I am
logged in as an ordinary user, I can "su" to root (even though the terminal I
am [apparently] on is not one of the tty's listed in /etc/securetty).  Go
figure.  Have you tried this?

I wonder if maybe pts/# is an alias for a tty?  I still have so much to learn.

Jim