I have two machines, one is Windows 11 and my server is running Debian 12. SSH has run fine on both machines up until recently. Whenever i try to SSH into my server, it will reject the password (which is undoubtedly correct), and after a few failed attempts it will give me an error that says “Permission denied (publickey,password).” I can SSH into the server completely fine on my other devices, so the problem has to lie within my Windows machine. Since I last used SSH, the only notable things that have happened were that I installed (and soon after uninstalled) the OpenSSH server for Windows, and yesterday an internet outage happened that left me without internet for a full day. This morning, the router was reset and I’ve ensured that both machines are connected.
If this is the wrong sub to be posting this on, I’d appreciate if someone were to kindly point me to a correct sub on which I could repost.
Connect with more v(erbose) output to your server. Example:
ssh -vvvv @
… and read line by line.
When you say your Windows machine is getting an external ip, is it an actual external ip or that it’s the 169 address that your machine gets when it can’t speak to your dhcp server?
Can you access the Internet or any other services on your Windows machine?
Check your logs /var/log/auth.log. You can pipe grep it to search by IP or just try to connect then quickly check. That might give you more insight that isn’t being provided to the remote client (windows).
Is is possible that Windows passkey is being used? Did you remove all traces of the sshd install. Also if your using Windows Terminal try putty.
Note the order of “(publickey,password)”. I’m gonna guess publickey is being used before password.
Certainly seems like a Windows (client) problem and not a server problem.
How would I go about removing the sshd install traces? I just used the powershell command for uninstalling the server that was provided in this page (but this wouldn’t be the first time Microsoft has screwed me over.): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/openssh/openssh_install_firstuse
I’ve tried putty, it hasn’t worked.
systemctl stop ssh&&/usr/sbin/sshd -ddd on the server, then try again