RHEL3, RHEL4, openssh and openldap

[mroth at cfl.rr.com]

Hi, folks,

   Well, after weeks of fighting, I got openldap working, including
automounting home directories... but that was between two RHEL4 boxen. I
have an RHEL3 box (and no, I don't look to get permission to upgrade it
soon), and I've tried everything, but it seems as though openssh is not
going through PAM to call ldap. On RHEL4, /var/log/secure tells me it
hit LDAP; while on the RHEL3 box, I see nothing, other than password
failed for <username>.

   The RHEL4 are running openssh 3.9.p1-8, pam 0.77-65, and openldap
2.2.13-2, and the server's on one of them. The RHEL3 box has openssh
3.6.1p2, pam 0.75-67, and openldap 2.0.27 (core, -22, clients, -17).

   I've tried running ssh -vvv to get there, and it tells me nothing
useful, and I've also tried running strace right after attempting to log
on, and the things that make me nervous are a reference to trying to
open nsswitch.conf, and "... an ex" in the text with it, and then it
seems to be printing out what you'd get with -?.

   Are there any known interoperability issues? Is the version of
openssh I'm using *really* PAM-enabled?

   Clues for the poor?

     mark