[Macpartners] Mac Mini ssh problem

[David C Oertel]

Dear macpartners at mit.edu,

I've got a problem with my Mac, and I was directed to this list by the 
IS&T Help Desk.

I recently bought a Core Solo Mac Mini, and I plan to use it as a headless 
server in an MIT graduate residence.  I've done all the obvious things:

-switch machine sleep delay to "never"
-turn on "Remote Access" in the Sharing pane of System Preferences
-secure a static IP and hostname

However, I cannot ssh into the Mini consistently despite being able to 
ping it (meaning it is not sleeping).  I can always ssh in up to roughly 
an hour after a reboot, but after that, when I do ssh -v, I get:

% ssh -v 18.95.1.212
OpenSSH_3.5p1, SSH protocols 1.5/2.0, OpenSSL 0x0090704f
4330: debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config
4330: debug1: Rhosts Authentication disabled, originating port will not be 
trusted.
4330: debug1: ssh_connect: needpriv 0
4330: debug1: Connecting to 18.95.1.212 [18.95.1.212] port 22.
4330: debug1: Connection established.
4330: debug1: identity file /mit/dco/.ssh/identity type -1
4330: debug1: identity file /mit/dco/.ssh/id_rsa type -1
4330: debug1: identity file /mit/dco/.ssh/id_dsa type -1

and then the connection hangs.  (On the Mini side, this is recorded in 
my sshd.log file as a "Did not receive identification string" error.)  The 
next debug lines (in successful logins, just after reboot) relate to the 
version of OpenSSH on the server (the Mini), which leads me to suspect 
that what is happening is that launchd is allowing sshd to terminate 
(after it initially runs after a boot) and that somehow launchd fails to 
restart sshd when I try to ssh into the Mini.  Unfortunately, I don't have 
a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to connect to the server at all times to 
test this theory with ps -A.

I'd be most appreciative of any insight into this problem that anyone on 
macpartners at mit.edu might have.  I've looked on a number of Mac forums 
online, and I don't see other users having trouble with this sort of thing 
(despite the widespread use of Macs -- especially Minis -- as servers.  I 
can't imagine that Apple's developers would not have caught a bug like 
this, but even after a fresh reinstallation of the OS (with no 
command-line system modifications), I continue to have this trouble.

Thank you for your time,

David Oertel
Bawendi Group x38594
Dept of Chemistry