OpenSSH connection hanging

rbrtgbsd

I have an interesting (to me anyway) problem. I am trying to connect via ssh from my Arch Linux machine to my GhostBSD machine. I can connect GhostBSD to Arch Linux just fine. But, I cannot connect Arch Linux to GhostBSD. (Arch Linux is running OpenSSH v10.5p1 and GhostBSD is running OpenSSH 10.0p2 if that matters.)

When I run: "ssh -vvv adminbsd@192.168.242.1xx"

debug1: OpenSSH_10.5p1, OpenSSL 3.6.4 25 Aug 2026
debug3: Running on Linux 6.18.53-1-lts #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon, 21 Sep 2026 14:42:53 +0000 x86_64
debug3: Started with: ssh -vvv adminbsd@192.168.242.1xx
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug3: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 2: Including file /etc/ssh/ssh_config.d/20-systemd-ssh-proxy.conf depth 0
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config.d/20-systemd-ssh-proxy.conf
debug2: resolve_canonicalize: hostname 192.168.242.1xx is address
debug3: expanded UserKnownHostsFile '~/.ssh/known_hosts' -> '/home/bob/.ssh/known_hosts'
debug3: expanded UserKnownHostsFile '~/.ssh/known_hosts2' -> '/home/bob/.ssh/known_hosts2'
debug1: loaded pubkey from /home/bob/.ssh/id_rsa: RSA SHA256:M+A3FoyJUxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxuN3eW7vWADjbi1EWtOc
debug1: identity file /home/bob/.ssh/id_rsa type 0
debug1: no identity pubkey loaded from /home/bob/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: no pubkey loaded from /home/bob/.ssh/id_ecdsa
debug1: identity file /home/bob/.ssh/id_ecdsa type -1
debug1: no identity pubkey loaded from /home/bob/.ssh/id_ecdsa
debug1: no pubkey loaded from /home/bob/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk
debug1: identity file /home/bob/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk type -1
debug1: no identity pubkey loaded from /home/bob/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk
debug1: loaded pubkey from /home/bob/.ssh/id_ed25519: ED25519 SHA256:9cwEgJxgUxxxxxxxxxxxxxxVVIEBc2w+bloVZPqsYMw
debug1: identity file /home/bob/.ssh/id_ed25519 type 2
debug1: no identity pubkey loaded from /home/bob/.ssh/id_ed25519
debug1: no pubkey loaded from /home/bob/.ssh/id_ed25519_sk
debug1: identity file /home/bob/.ssh/id_ed25519_sk type -1
debug1: no identity pubkey loaded from /home/bob/.ssh/id_ed25519_sk
debug1: no pubkey loaded from /home/bob/.ssh/id_mldsa44_ed25519
debug1: identity file /home/bob/.ssh/id_mldsa44_ed25519 type -1
debug1: no identity pubkey loaded from /home/bob/.ssh/id_mldsa44_ed25519
debug3: channel_clear_timeouts: clearing
debug3: ssh_connect_direct: entering
debug1: Connecting to 192.168.242.1xx [192.168.242.1xx] port 22.
debug3: set_sock_tos: set socket 3 IP_TOS 0xb8
debug1: connect to address 192.168.242.1xx port 22: Connection timed out

After several (5+?) minutes the following appears:

ssh: connect to host 192.168.242.1xx port 22: Connection timed out

(I have sanitized the output somewhat for privacy reasons. I hope I did not make diagnostics more difficult as a result.)

I did notice (if this matters or not) that the Arch Linux machine is including the

Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config.d/20-systemd-ssh-proxy.conf

File contents:

# SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-or-later
#
# Allow connecting to the local host directly via ".host"
Host .host machine/.host
        ProxyCommand /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-ssh-proxy unix/run/ssh-unix-local/socket %p
        ProxyUseFdpass yes
        CheckHostIP no

# Make sure unix/* and vsock/* can be used to connect to AF_UNIX and AF_VSOCK paths.
# Make sure machine/* can be used to connect to local machines registered in machined.
#
Host unix/* unix%* vsock/* vsock%* vsock-mux/* vsock-mux%* machine/* machine%*
        User root
        ProxyCommand /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-ssh-proxy %h %p
        ProxyUseFdpass yes
        CheckHostIP no

        # Disable all kinds of host identity checks, since these addresses are generally ephemeral.
        StrictHostKeyChecking no
        UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null

Could this be an issue between OpenSSH versions?

I have reached a point I am stumped. Suggestions?

tsesani

rbrtgbsd I have had SSH problems after update also.
Usind Midnight Commander on AntiX to Ghostbsd had problems; command line sftp worked fine..
GhostBSD to GhostBSD fine.

wb7odyfred

add user name to wheel group. example user name vivek

id vivek
pw usermod -n vivek -G wheel
id vivek

using OpenSSH example, add user wheel group Read for knowledge. I too had problems with Linux client SSH connecting to a GhostBSD server daemon. Add comments on what worked out to fix your problem.

tsesani

wb7odyfred

I have always had these; no problems before update.
tsesani@claudville ~> groups
wheel operator vboxusers tsesani

BSDsEnjoyer

tsesani Do you have the firewall configured/disabled on the GhostBSD machine? I can't ssh into default GhostBSD without first tweaking or disabling the firewall on it.
The simplest commands to input on GhostBSD to allow to ssh into it:
sysrc sshd_enable=YES
service sshd start
In the default ssh setup you'd also need to specify a password for a user account you would be logging into with passwd (putting this just in case).
Please note that it is more secure to ssh via a key.
To disable the firewall (the simplest way to allow to ssh):
service ipfw stop
Please note that disabling the firewall is, of course, not ideal, it is better to tweak its settings.

tsesani

BSDsEnjoyer I found my problem was using a ssh link to GhostBSD from midnight commander on the live AntiX jump drive with no updates.
I needed Linux to use an Easycap to convert some VHSC tapes.
I just did not want to give up a GhostBSD machine to install a Linux distribution.
It worked fine using sftp from the command line.