openssh unix dev - Nov 2003 - Request for subsystem 'sftp' failed on channel 0

Hello,

I installed OpenSSH_3.7p1 on 2 AIX 4.3.3 servers last week and had this
problem on both of them. On the first server I finally re-installed the
package and that fixed it. I tried
re-installing it multiple times on the second server and still have the same
issue. I have checked everything that I can think of and spent many hours
looking for a solution. Both servers have the same csh.cshrc and csh.login
files. I don't have a personal .cshrc file on either server. I have many
more servers to install this on and would appreciate any help I can get to
solve this issue. Thank you.

Here is some of what I have and see:

OpenSSH_3.7p1, SSH protocols 1.5/2.0, OpenSSL 0.9.7b 10 Apr 2003


% sftp localhost
Connecting to localhost...
norm at localhost's password:
Request for subsystem 'sftp' failed on channel 0
Connection closed


% sftp -s /usr/local/libexec/sftp-server localhost
Connecting to localhost...
norm at localhost's password:
sftp>

% sftp -P /usr/local/libexec/sftp-server
Attaching to /usr/local/libexec/sftp-server..
sftp>

sshd_config:

# override default of no subsystems
Subsystem sftp  /usr/local/libexec/sftp-server

.login:
#!/bin/csh
set path = ( /usr/bin /etc /usr/sbin /usr/local/bin /usr/local/libexec
/usr/ucb
$HOME/bin /usr/bin/X11 /sbin . )
setenv MAIL "/var/spool/mail/$LOGNAME"
setenv MAILMSG "[YOU HAVE NEW MAIL]"
#if ( -f "$MAIL" && ! -z "$MAIL") then
#       echo "$MAILMSG"
#endif


csh.login:
# If LC_MESSAGES is set to "C at lft" and TERM is not set to
"lft",
# unset LC_MESSAGES.
if ($?LC_MESSAGES) then
        if ("$LC_MESSAGES" == "C at lft" &&
"$TERM" != "lft") then
                unsetenv LC_MESSAGES
        endif
endif


Norm Fredrick
Computac Inc.
Network Administrator
603-298-5721
603-298-6189  Fax

Norm Fredrick wrote:
> I installed OpenSSH_3.7p1 on 2 AIX 4.3.3 servers
You may want to consider using 3.7.1p2 instead.

[snip]
> % sftp localhost
> Connecting to localhost...
> norm at localhost's password:
> Request for subsystem 'sftp' failed on channel 0
> Connection closed
Try running the server in debug mode, this may give some indication as to
why the channel open failed.

In one session, run (as root):
# /usr/local/sbin/sshd -ddd -p 2022

and in another, run:
$ sftp -o Port=2022 localhost

If there's nothing obvious, post the output of sshd to the list.

-- 
Darren Tucker (dtucker at zip.com.au)
GPG key 8FF4FA69 / D9A3 86E9 7EEE AF4B B2D4  37C9 C982 80C7 8FF4 FA69
    Good judgement comes with experience. Unfortunately, the experience
usually comes from bad judgement.