In debian kali I tried to connect ssh and getting the following error :

SSH: connect to host localhost port 22: Connection refused

Background :

I was trying to connect ssh in debian, I am using kali 2.0 sana

What I have tried/did:

`apt-get install openssh-server`

installed openssh-server and its uptodate

Queried service ssh status

● ssh.service - OpenBSD Secure Shell server Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/ssh.service; enabled) Active: active (running) since Wed 2015-09-23 17:20:36 IST; 36min ago Main PID: 1594 (sshd) CGroup: / └─1594 /usr/sbin/sshd -D

Reconfigured dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server and it also lead to success

Now I tried to connect ssh root@localhost which requires root@localhost password so what I did was

vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config and added command to deny root login :

My sshd_config as follows :

What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for Port 22
#Use these options to restrict which interfaces/protocols sshd will bind to
#ListenAddress ::
#ListenAddress 0.0.0.0 Protocol 2
# HostKeys for protocol version 2 HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key
#Privilege Separation is turned on for security UsePrivilegeSeparation yes

Now again tried to connect ssh via ´ssh root@localhost´ not I got connect to host localhost port 22: Connection refused

I though my iptables might be preventing it so configured it as :

vim /root/firewall.rules
root@vignesh:~# iptables-save > /root/firewall.rules
root@vignesh:~# iptables -X
root@vignesh:~# iptables -t nat -F
root@vignesh:~# iptables -t nat -X
root@vignesh:~# iptables -t mangle -F
root@vignesh:~# iptables -t mangle -X
root@vignesh:~# iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
root@vignesh:~# iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
root@vignesh:~# iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
root@vignesh:~# iptables-save > /root/firewall.rules

And I queried the iptables-save

# Generated by iptables-save v1.4.21 on Wed Sep 23 18:50:34 2015
*mangle
:PREROUTING ACCEPT [41217:4171959]
:INPUT ACCEPT [27727:3255690]
:FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [1834:219528]
:POSTROUTING ACCEPT [1835:219654]
COMMIT
# Completed on Wed Sep 23 18:50:34 2015
# Generated by iptables-save v1.4.21 on Wed Sep 23 18:50:34 2015
*nat
:PREROUTING ACCEPT [15456:1179155]
:INPUT ACCEPT [1858:255303]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [223:14078]
:POSTROUTING ACCEPT [223:14078]
COMMIT
# Completed on Wed Sep 23 18:50:34 2015
# Generated by iptables-save v1.4.21 on Wed Sep 23 18:50:34 2015
*filter
:INPUT ACCEPT [26756:3173280]
:FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [1775:215770]
COMMIT

As per comment checked

root@vignesh:~# netstat -an | grep 22
tcp 0 0 10.100.8.40:54036 216.58.220.46:80 ESTABLISHED
tcp 0 0 10.100.8.40:41573 216.58.220.14:80 ESTABLISHED
unix 3 [ ] STREAM CONNECTED 17722 @/tmp/dbus-JUNz9GwSon
unix 3 [ ] STREAM CONNECTED 13422
unix 3 [ ] STREAM CONNECTED 17224
unix 3 [ ] STREAM CONNECTED 17422
unix 2 [ ] DGRAM 9222
unix 3 [ ] STREAM CONNECTED 17221 /var/run/NetworkManager/private
unix 3 [ ] STREAM CONNECTED 17225 /var/run/NetworkManager/private
unix 3 [ ] STREAM CONNECTED 17229
unix 3 [ ] STREAM CONNECTED 17220 

Now again I tried ssh root@localhost but again got the error.

Kindly guide me where I am missing the part? How can I get it connected?

8

5 Answers

Your netstat output shows that there's no process listening to port 22, and that would explain why you get a Connection refused when trying to SSH.

Your status info about the sshd daemon shows running, however no listening port is associated with it (or doesn't seem to).

Further, as you were told in the comments, your sshd_config file seem to be incorrect. You say you want to disable root login, so I'll propose a configuration for your SSH daemon.

Edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and put the following content in it:

Port 22
Protocol 2
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key
UsePrivilegeSeparation yes
KeyRegenerationInterval 3600
ServerKeyBits 1024
SyslogFacility AUTH
LogLevel INFO
LoginGraceTime 120
PermitRootLogin no
StrictModes yes
RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
IgnoreRhosts yes
RhostsRSAAuthentication no
HostbasedAuthentication no
PermitEmptyPasswords no
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no
X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
PrintMotd no
PrintLastLog yes
TCPKeepAlive yes
AcceptEnv LANG LC_*
Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server
UsePAM yes
ClientAliveInterval 30
ClientAliveCountMax 99999

If you're worried about security, you can restrict SSH only to the users you want. For example, if you want to restrict that only user vignesh can SSH, you can add another directive like this:

AllowUsers vignesh

After that, simply restart the sshd service. Once done, if you run netstat -atpn | grep 22 you should see the port 22 listening for everybody.

2

I can't see if you actually added this line, or uncommented it:Port 22

If no port is specified in sshd_config, sshd will not listen on any port. Given your output from netstat, this is likely the issue.

3

First of make sure your root account has set up with passwordif root has no password you can sudo passwd root then type new password for root.

Then you can SSH in with the -v option for verbose output.:

ssh root@localhost -v

If the connection is still refused, please post the output of the ssh root@localhost -v command.

Steps:

Let's suppose the IP of server 1 is 192.x.x.1 and the IP of server 2 is 192.x.x.2

On server 1:

ssh-keygen -t rsa
cd .ssh
ssh-copy-id -i /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub root@192.x.x.2

Now ssh server2.com or ssh 192.x.x.2

If you get a connection error (SSH ::), then check the /etc/hosts file on both servers it must have IP's of SERVER1 and SERVER2 and if it doesn't contain entries of both servers then update this /etc/hosts file on both servers having IP address hostname etc, and then check if your issue will be resolved.

I got the same error and it is resolved by modifying IP's in both hosts files.

2

It occurred to me today. According to this link, "Kali Linux does not come with SSH enabled"