I want to thank everyone for contributing to solving the implementation problem I was having. It seems in the end it was an "operator" problem. To summarize the results:

- regarding sshd port change - uncomment port, and change the port number entry in /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Restart the sshd service. Update /etc/sysconfig/iptables to reflect the port number change from 22 to the port number specified in / etc/ssh/sshd_config, then restart iptables service.

- PasswordAuthentication no - this requires an additional option to be change, "ChallengeResponseAuthentication no". Having made both of these changes, causes the login to abort is a valid ssh key is not specified.

Again many thanks to everyone.

_____

From: Karl Kobata [mailto:Karl.Kobata@syncira.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 11:02 AM To: 'centos@centos.org' Subject: sshd options - centos 5.3

I have installed cento 5.3. I enabled the ssh deamon. I have found that 2 options that I normally use does respond as I expect. Has anyone else had similar problems with the following options in sshd_config:

- Port 6666 - if I set the port to anything other than 22 (default), using ssh -p6666 name@servername, does not work. Yet if I leave keep the default, then ssh name@servername allows me to login.

- PasswordAuthentication no - if I set this option to "no" (default is "yes"), and my ssh key is either missing or in error, I will be prompted for user system login password. If this is set to "no", it should not allow me to login if I have not ssh key specified or in error. Has anyone else run into this problem.

Is there a workaround? What are my options? Please help.