OpenBSD Secure Shell/SSH service is failing to start
Linode
Linode Staff
When my Linode rebooted SSH failed to start and I cannot restart it manually via Lish
ssh.service - OpenBSD Secure Shell server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/ssh.service; enabled)
Active: failed (Result: start-limit) since Wed 2018-05-23 18:08:51 CEST; 1min 50s ago
Process: 8516 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/sshd -t (code=exited, status=255)
May 23 18:08:50 hostname systemd[1]: Failed to start OpenBSD Secure Shell server.
May 23 18:08:50 hostname systemd[1]: Unit ssh.service entered failed state.
May 23 18:08:51 hostname systemd[1]: ssh.service holdoff time over, scheduling restart.
May 23 18:08:51 hostname systemd[1]: Stopping OpenBSD Secure Shell server…
May 23 18:08:51 hostname systemd[1]: Starting OpenBSD Secure Shell server…
May 23 18:08:51 hostname systemd[1]: ssh.service start request repeated too quickly, refusing to start.
May 23 18:08:51 hostname systemd[1]: Failed to start OpenBSD Secure Shell server.
May 23 18:08:51 hostname systemd[1]: Unit ssh.service entered failed state
1 Reply
SSH will fail to start if there are syntax errors in the /etc/ssh/sshd configuration file. The command following command will tell you if any directives are incorrect:
/usr/sbin/sshd -T
If the configuration test does not return any errors, I would suggest starting sshd in debugging mode, this will provide you with a detailed startup of the service:
/usr/sbin/sshd -ddd