Unable to start cygwin sshd service

Question

I entered ssh-host-config into the cygwin prompt (started with admin privileges), said yes to privilege separation, new local account sshd, install sshd as a servic

Answer 1

I tried above solutions but nothing worked for me. I am using Windows 8 and was able to solve it. My sshd.log file says : "Privilege separation user sshd does not exist FAILED"

So to remove this error while starting sshd as service just following below steps:

1. Edit the file /etc/passwd --
   add " sshd:x:74:74:Privilege-separated SSH:/var/empty/sshd:/sbin/nologin ".

2. Edit the file /etc/group -- add " sshd:x:74: ".

Now start service as net start sshd

It worked for me!

Answer 2

In my case (using a Polish version of Windows 8) I had to manually modify the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files.

Some lines for Administrator, Administrators, Guest, Guests, etc. had been missing, so I merely inserted them, and copied all other fields from their non-English versions. Eg.

nano   /etc/passwd

SYSTEM:*:18:544:,S-1-5-18::
LocalService:*:19:544:U-NT AUTHORITY\LocalService,S-1-5-19::
NetworkService:*:20:544:U-NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService,S-1-5-20::
Administrators:*:544:544:,S-1-5-32-544::
Administratorzy:*:544:544:,S-1-5-32-544::
TrustedInstaller:*:4294967294:4294967294:U-NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller,S-1-5-80-956008885-3418522649-1831038044-1853292631-2271478464::
Administrator:unused:500:513:U-gordito\Administrator,S-1-5-21-580982140-4090956935-1935414389-500:/home/Administrator:/bin/bash
Guest:unused:501:513:U-gordito\Gość,S-1-5-21-580982140-4090956935-1935414389-501:/home/Gość:/bin/bash
Gość:unused:501:513:U-gordito\Gość,S-1-5-21-580982140-4090956935-1935414389-501:/home/Gość:/bin/bash
HomeGroupUser$:unused:1004:513:HomeGroupUser$,U-gordito\HomeGroupUser$,S-1-5-21-580982140-4090956935-1935414389-1004:/home/HomeGroupUser$:/bin/bash
sshd:unused:1006:513:sshd privsep,U-gordito\sshd,S-1-5-21-580982140-4090956935-1935414389-1006:/var/empty:/bin/false
cyg_server:unused:1007:513:Privileged server,U-gordito\cyg_server,S-1-5-21-580982140-4090956935-1935414389-1007:/var/empty:/bin/false


nano /etc/group

root:S-1-5-32-544:0:
SYSTEM:S-1-5-18:18:
TrustedInstaller:S-1-5-80-956008885-3418522649-1831038044-1853292631-2271478464:4294967294:
Administrators:S-1-5-32-544:544:
Administratorzy:S-1-5-32-544:544:
Czytelnicy dzienników zdarzeń:S-1-5-32-573:573:
Guests:S-1-5-32-546:546:
Goście:S-1-5-32-546:546:
IIS_IUSRS:S-1-5-32-568:568:
Users:S-1-5-32-545:545:
Users DCOM:S-1-5-32-562:562:
Użytkownicy:S-1-5-32-545:545:
Użytkownicy DCOM:S-1-5-32-562:562:
Użytkownicy dzienników wydajności:S-1-5-32-559:559:
Użytkownicy monitora wydajności:S-1-5-32-558:558:
Użytkownicy zarządzania zdalnego:S-1-5-32-580:580:
HomeUsers:S-1-5-21-580982140-4090956935-1935414389-1003:1003:
TelnetClients:S-1-5-21-580982140-4090956935-1935414389-1005:1005:
WinRMRemoteWMIUsers__:S-1-5-21-580982140-4090956935-1935414389-1000:1000:
None:S-1-5-21-580982140-4090956935-1935414389-513:513:
Brak:S-1-5-21-580982140-4090956935-1935414389-513:513:

Only after this, I was finally able to chmod g-rwx all the files that offended sshd, in a way that 'ls -la' indeed confirmed the dropped permissions for group and other.

Then finally, privileged CYGWIN services installed and started (sshd, cron)

Answer 3

I had the same problem and here is the solution that worked for me.

Solution 1

Restart the machine after you set the path environment variables to point to Cygwin bin directories and then start the service.

Solution 2

1. First add the account that runs the Cygwin sshd demon service to administrators group (this is by default)

2. Go to your cygwin installation folder (mine is at c:\cygwin64 and yours may differ)

   • add administrators group as full control. remove the property
   • Remove Readonly for your cygwin installation folder so anyone can write into it

3. Run the cygwin terminal as administrator and remove the service by typing

   cygrunsrv -R sshd
   

4. Reboot your system

5. Run the cygwin terminal as administrator and reinstall the service again by typing

   ssh-host-config -y
   

6. Run the cygwin terminal as administrator and start the service by typing

   net start sshd
   

Your service now be running!

Answer 4

I followed the steps in this topic and the problem was still happening, then I checked the sshd log file and it was complaining that the privilegies of the ssh private key were to open.

I executed the follow command:

chmod 400 /etc/ssh_host_ecdsa_key

Then I run the service:

net start sshd

It finally worked (BTW: I am using Windows 8)

Answer 5

Followed the steps provide by Andrea Solution 1 and solution 2 , it did not work. Event viewer did not provide any info.

So took a look at the log var/log/sshd.log first it complained that it was unable to load the dll:

/usr/sbin/sshd.exe: error while loading shared libraries: cygcrypto-1.0.0.dll

Solution:

• Reinstalled the package and ensured that the dll were in lib.

• Started the service again still it failed but this time it complained about missing host key.

  Could not load host key: /etc/ssh_host_dsa_key Could not load host key: /etc/ssh_host_ecdsa_key Disabling protocol version 2. Could not load host key sshd: no hostkeys available -- exiting.

Solution:

• go to the Cygwin Command prompt (with run as admin ) and
• enter ssh-keygen -A
  the missing host key were generated .

Finally I was able to start it.

I would recommend looking at the log file further if the above solution does not work.