Getting SSH (and FTP) to work: a follow-up

We still are unable to get MacSSH to connect to a Mac OS X volume (see yesterday's item). We tried a< variety of suggestions offered by two very helpful and knowledgeable readers (Julian Koh and Steve Burling). But to no avail. Along the way, we did learn about the location of and significance of< various files on which sharing and networking depend. These include the< various "ssh" and "host" files in the /private/etc directory, as noted yesterday. Related preferences settings are stored in private/var/db/SystemConfiguration/preferences.xml. Also, SSH secure login server is initiated at startup via the files in System/Library/Startup/SSH. And checking log files in Console is useful for determining when and if errors are occurring.

At one point, we did discover that the ssh_host_dsa_key and ssh_host_key files did not have the correct permissions. We went into Terminal and used the sudo chmod command to fix this. While this accounted for part of the problems we were having, fixing this still did not allow MacSSH to work.

We also have a continuing difficulty (which we now also mention in this Forums thread) getting the IP address listed in the Sharing System Preferences pane to change. No matter how we modify the address in the Network pane, the listing in the Sharing pane remains the same.

As not all users have these problems, we are once again beginning to suspect that they may only be solved by completely reinstalling OS X. We'll report back if we ever get this worked out.

Update; Maurizio Ortolani suggests that the problem may be specific to MacSSH and not a general SSH issue with Mac OS X. He writes: "I can no longer connect to my OS X box via MacSSH but can do so using a remote Linux machine or a Windows Telnet/SSH app."

For better or worse, it becomes clear that there are many more files involved in networking in OS X than in OS 9; with several important ones located in directories that are normally invisible in Aqua. And even something as seemingly simple as replacing a suspected problem file gets complicated by permission restrictions. This all makes diagnosing and solving these problems significantly more complicated than most similar situations in OS 9.

In this MacFixIt Forums thread (10.0.1 -> Remote telnet login disabled?), a user reports a similar problem using MacSSH. Other replies offer suggestions.

In this MacFixIt Forums thread (no more ftp or web, ssh is fine), a reader describes almost the opposite problem: FTP and Web access used to be fine, but now I cannot access either of them as they time out... SSH works fine though. Replies offer< various suggestions, including replacing the httpd.conf file, which the reader had modified.