CODEWITHSUNDEEP
sslsshshared-hostingopenssh
Hanie Asemi
Hanie Asemi

Reputation: 1500

kex_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

I've wanted to connect my share hosting with ssh. So I generate an ssh key in the ssh action of cpanel and authorized it. Then I've downloaded the private key and drop it in the ./ssh folder of my MacBook.I've used this code to connect my host.

ssh -p 2083  username@host IP

but I got this error:

kex_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

How can I solve my problem?

Upvotes: 21

Views: 159099

Answers (8)

cs.lev
cs.lev

Reputation: 322

I just had the same problem and neither of the solutions above worked as the problem stemmed from somewhere else. It turned out the domain I tried to connect to (with cloudflare tunnels btw, i.e., with ProxyCommand), was not resolved. I am pihole and the external filters blocked the domain resolution for my SSH server. Hence, when I wanted to connect to the server, due to the blackholing of blocked domains, the IP it was resolved to was my localhost. So everytime I wanted to connect to that domain, it tried to connect to localhost.

The solution was to update my pihole container to the latest version and now it is working.

Upvotes: 0

shgnInc
shgnInc

Reputation: 2196

In my case I was trying to ssh to a Debian 12 VM. I survived the log, and find some logs maybe sounds like attak on my ssh, So, I solve it by update openssh-server on the VM.

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

and fixed it.

Upvotes: -1

GrimmA
GrimmA

Reputation: 11

In my case the host was also the reason - I used gitea as git server and the .ssh folder and all certs in it required to be not accessible for everyone.

This makes totally sense, but I wished that the error message would give a better hint!

Upvotes: 1

rudy
rudy

Reputation: 11

Not so sure if my solution is working for yours. For me, I plan to connect to github via ssh. The same error occurs. I find the solution in https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/55269 My config file content is as below.

#Windows
ProxyCommand "C:\APP\Git\mingw64\bin\connect" -S 127.0.0.1:51837 -a none %h %p

#MacOS
#ProxyCommand nc -v -x 127.0.0.1:51837 %h %p

Host github.com
  User git
  Port 443
  Hostname ssh.github.com
  # change the path here
  IdentityFile "C:\Users\Your_User_Name\.ssh\id_rsa"
  TCPKeepAlive yes

Host ssh.github.com
  User git
  Port 443
  Hostname ssh.github.com
  # change the path here
  IdentityFile "C:\Users\Your_User_Name\.ssh\id_rsa"
  TCPKeepAlive yes

Upvotes: 1

True
True

Reputation: 447

first, make sure if the hostname is correct. A typo either in the cmd or configfile gives this error.

then, check the sshd log in the host, to find the issues.

Upvotes: 1

Keivan
Keivan

Reputation: 1779

I had same problem and it was happend as I use ProxyCommand in ssh config file. In my case the Host was not defined correctly which then caused the same error!

Upvotes: 3

ondrados
ondrados

Reputation: 492

I got this error when using docker command with remote host

docker -H ssh://user@server compose up

after some digging i found on my remote server in auth logs (/var/log/auth.log) this:

Aug  8 14:51:46 user sshd[1341]: error: beginning MaxStartups throttling
Aug  8 14:51:46 user sshd[1341]: drop connection #10 from [some_ip]:32992 on [some_ip]:22 past MaxStartups

This lead me to change MaxStartups settings in /etc/ssh/sshd_config. After restarting ssh service everything worked like a charm.

Upvotes: 6

Carlos Moro
Carlos Moro

Reputation: 165

I run into a similar case with a small computer I have in my desk. What I did to debug the issue was to run sshd -t, which runs the sshd daemon in debug mode. This command reported that the permissions of my keys were invalid. All I had to do then was to go in the folder where the keys are stored and issue chmod 0600 <your_ssh_keys>. Maybe the action you run generated things with the wrong permissions too.

Upvotes: 15

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