ssh tunnel established - can't connect

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:

Code:

---

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.

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?

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wgcampbell

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!