hello Josh, indeed it was an sshd config issue: external_sshd_config
also i would like to mention that, since i have 'PAM' enabled i had to do the following as well to get it to work, and failed otherwise. cd /etc/pam.d ln -s sshd ext_sshd i was scratching my head until i found the above solution at http://www.kudos.be/multiple_sshd regards, prem. > This sounds like an sshd config issue. I'd work with the external_sshd_config > to find what is keeping you from being able to log in. Andy could confirm, > but I'm pretty sure vcld sets that file up to allow password based logins. > I'd compare external_sshd_config from the box that won't let you log in with > sshd_config from a non-VCL machine that will let you use a password to log in. > > If you try sshing to it from another linux machine, you can use 'ssh -vvv' to > get quite a bit of debugging info about the connection establishment. > > Josh >