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’Failed to establish SSH session ’

Troubleshooting "Failed to Establish SSH Session" errors with ezeelogin


Overview: This article addresses troubleshooting steps for resolving "Failed to establish SSH session" errors encountered when using Ezeelogin's shell interface. Covering firewall configurations, SELinux checks, SSH timeout adjustments, log inspections, and log size management, it provides comprehensive solutions to ensure seamless SSH connectivity. 


'Failed to establish SSH session' error ; unable ssh via Ezeelogin shell 

Follow the below steps:

Step 1. Make sure that the  iptables / firewall is not blocking ssh traffic (check ssh port is open on both gateway & target server) and make sure SSHD is not blocked in /etc/hosts.allow or /etc/hosts.deny

telnet <server_ip> 22

Step 2. Make sure that SELinux is disabled on jumpbox / gateway server and the target server. You can find it by typing 'sestatus'

root@gateway:~# sestatus
SELinux status: disabled

Step 3. Increase ssh timeout value to 60 seconds.Do refer to this user manual.

Step 4. Check ezsh log for errors. You can get it from '/home/{username}/ezsh.log '

Step 5. Also, check for the SSHD error log of the remote server to which you are trying to login.

           If it is Centos it will be /var/log/secure

           If it is Ubuntu it will be /var/log/auth.log

  • On the remote server run the below command.

root@remote_server:~# systemctl restart systemd-logind.service

Step 7. Try to re-add the server and try to access it again.

Step 8. Check the size of the /var/log/btmp. You can check that by running the following command on the remote server

root@remote_server:~# ls -lah /var/log/btmp

 If you are unable to ssh via the ezsh interface and you get the error on /home/{username}/ezsh.log

Authentication by SSH key DB failed :

Channel failed (shell): Timed out waiting on socket

You can find the following logs on /var/log/secure and /var/log/messages on the remote server.

 sshd[236622]: Accepted publickey for root from 46.232.178.114 port 40506 ssh2: RSA SHA256:cpVnOWHn+WeiGl4JuYAlMtx39Vx5Dz82CuN7I12yITI

 sshd[236622]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)

systemd-logind: New session c100 of user root.

systemd: Started Session c100 of user root.

systemd-logind: Removed session c100.

If the size of /var/log/btmp is high then truncate the logs in /var/log/btmp. You can truncate the logs by running the following command on the remote server.

root@remote_server:~# > /var/log/btmp


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Authentication by ssh key failed

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