ssh fails to authenticate some users

[cochoa]

Hi there, I am experiencing a weird problem with ssh.

Most of users here use the passwordless login mode when using ssh. However, after upgrading from RH9 to FC2, some of them are unable to keep login in such a way.

As root, I su - to such users, and did some test, using ssh -v -v <server> from the client, and starting sshd -d -d in the server, and find out that for such users, the following occurred

...
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /home/german/.ssh/identity
debug1: Trying private key: /home/german/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Offering public key: /home/german/.ssh/id_dsa
debug2: we sent a publickey packet, wait for reply
Connection closed by 138.100.11.74
debug1: Calling cleanup 0x8062d00(0x0)

and in the server

...
debug2: input_userauth_request: try method publickey
debug1: test whether pkalg/pkblob are acceptable
debug1: PAM setting rhost to "r2d7.dia.fi.upm.es"
debug2: monitor_read: 41 used once, disabling now
debug2: monitor_read: 3 used once, disabling now
debug1: temporarily_use_uid: 1007/109 (e=0/0)
getgroups: Invalid argument
debug1: Calling cleanup 0x8063d50(0x0)
debug1: Calling cleanup 0x806f3f0(0x0)


So apparently, there is a problem when doing getgroups(). This problem is not present for other users though...

I have been googling for an answer to this problem, no luck...

Any ideas??

[jledhead]

the groups that it can't find, check /etc/passwd and compare to /etc/group and make sure those users that you find in passwd have groups in /etc/group

[cochoa]

I've checked the users on /etc/group and the ones having problems have groups in /etc/group. Weird enough, some users NOT having problems with ssh have not groups (and some of them have)...
I remember I used recently the command pwconv to update the /etc/shadow file...I don't know whether this is related to this problem, posting it just in case...

[cochoa]

Ok, finally I have been able to know the reason of my problem, posting it here in case somebody else has the same problem:

- the users experiencing this problem belong to more than 32 groups, which is the value of NGROUPS_MAX in /usr/include/linux/limits.h

Posible solutions: to increase this number and recompile the kernel :S or to re-organize the groups (I think I will go for this choice).

But in fact, it was related to /etc/groups, so thanks jledhead for your help!