ssh tunnel established - can't connect

[wgcampbell]

I have an reverse ssh connection established from a remote machine - it's actually using autossh to keep the connection alive. I know the remote machine is active and is connecting because I can kill the process on my local machine, and watch the remote machine quickly establish a new reverse ssh connection.

But I cannot connect through the reverse port - I get the following:

ssh -p 7766 -vvv user[at_sign]192.168.1.108
OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-6ubuntu2, OpenSSL 0.9.8g 19 Oct 2007
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: Applying options for *
debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0
debug1: Connecting to 192.168.1.108 [192.168.1.108] port 7766.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /home/guest/.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /home/guest/.ssh/id_rsa type -1
debug1: identity file /home/guest/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

Couple of questions:

1. Does the above debug code confirm that sshd on the remote machine is active?
2. If this remote ssh tunnel is established, is there some other way I can use it to connect to a shell on that remote machine??

BTW, this remote machine is miles away and not readily accessible.

[Irithori]

The connection itself seems to be there: A ssh server answers.

But it is not happy with your credentials.
Probably wrong keyfiles or filepermissons on the private key or the .ssh dir are too open?

[wgcampbell]

So what to do? Can I use that reverse ssh connection in any fashion to get to a shell on the remote machine?

[mzv]

So what to do? Can I use that reverse ssh connection in any fashion to get to a shell on the remote machine?

1) chmod 600 id_rsa on client
2) try to connect as root
3) try to change the key pair
4) find any errors in sshd_config such as HostKey string, AuthorizedKeysFile etc.
good luck!