pam_tally with sshd: ssh password-based failures not tally'd

[Andy Armstrong]

George Hansper wrote:
> Fedora Core 3 (openssh-server 3.9p1-7) has started giving me the same
> strange behaviour as Mandrake:
> 
>     MaxAuthTries 1
> 
>  > ssh george at 127.0.0.1
> Received disconnect from 127.0.0.1: 2: Too many authentication failures 
> for george
> 
> ie before I can enter a password!
> 
> If I set:
>     MaxAuthTries 2
> 
>  > ssh georgeh at 127.0.0.1
> george at 127.0.0.1's password:
> Received disconnect from 127.0.0.1: 2: Too many authentication failures 
> for george
> 
> ie one attempt.
> 
> I have restarted the sshd server at each config change, and I haven't 
> been drinking, either!

:)

> Obviously, this ambiguity of MaxAuthTries is a "characteristic" of 
> openssh-server 3.9p1-7

I've got an FC3 box here - I'll have a play with it tomorrow with some 
debug output just to make sure it's not something silly I'm doing.

-- 
Andy Armstrong, hexten.net