SSH Authentification very slow on HPUX 11.31

[PatRoy]

Hi.

I've been having theses issues with 2 specific HPUX 11.31 boxes. When ever I login to theses using SSH/SFTP it is extremely slow to connect to.

Now, I've noticed that if I use Keyboard-Interactive Authentication with my SSH clients, it's fine! But any other choice will be very slow! Now, we use a lot UltraEdit with SFTP on theses boxes. Unfortunately, they don't have the option to use Keyboard-Interactive by default in this client.

How can I change this server side? What's funny is that I've got one other 11.31 box which is just fine. I've compared their Secure_Shell version (A.05.10.008), their sshd_config and the pam.conf. All the same.

Can anyone help?

Thanks so much!

Pat.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

Few possibilities.

I've seen quite a few complaints about this version of Secure Shell. A prior or upcoming version might work a little better.

This seems to me like a problem with the binaries.

also possible:
Slow DNS resolution

Network speed (use lanadmin to make sure you are getting full duplex).

SEP

[OldSchool]

i'd bet on name resolution issues first

[Anka]

compare the /etc/resolv.conf with a system without the problem
you can also check the /etc/nsswitch.conf file... hosts and also ipnodes should have files...dns.. entry
if the dns is on the first place try first files then dns and add in the /etc/hosts the ip fqdn alias for the client system to see whether the situation is the same

hope it helps

[Tingli]

This can be the primary DNS server is down while the secondary server is up. And ssh takes a long time to go to the second one for ip address.

[Olivier Masse]

Purge /var/adm/wtmp and /var/adm/wtmps.

[Court Campbell]

I would suspect dns. you could disable dns lookups in sshd_config and see if that speeds things up. You might also want to check your network speed. I only say that because I was plugged into a port once that was set to 100Mb.

[Steven Schweda]

Have you tried connecting using "ssh -v", to
try to see where in the procedure the delay
occurs?

Any difference if the client is the same as
the server?

[PatRoy]

Thanks all for your replies. However, we had also thought of a DNS problem at first. It can't be that. It's working just fine with other SSH Clients.

I'm even able to reproduce / fix the problem with PuTTY. Within putty, if I go to the Connection / SSH / Auth menu, there's an option to use "Attempt Keyboard-Interactive auth". It's on by default. If I login with that, it's fast. However, turning that OFF will make it slow.

I would need to same option with my other SSH Client (UltraEdit in this case), but it's not there. Now, I want to know how to fix that server side instead... if possible.

I'm attaching a screenshot of my putty.

Cheers. Pat

[OldSchool]

If I found the correct UltraEdit, it looks like you can configure that setting at the client side. see:

http://www.ultraedit.com/support/tutorials_power_tips/ultraedit/ssh_telnet.html

See section 3d regarding authentication methods....