ssh_exchange_identification error

Greets all...

OK, I'm stumped. I've worked with SSH for a lot of years, but I can't seem to get by this one.

I'm responsible for administering a remote system 3,000 miles distant. No one at the office is the least bit "computer-wise". The system is a Dell PE4600 running RH 8.0. The only open port to the box is 22; on the other end is OpenSSH 3.51-p1.

Friday everything was working swell. I logged in, did some maintenance stuff, logged out -- all without error or incident.

This week when I try to log into the system, the command hangs for about five minutes (ssh <hostname>) then returns:

ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

I've tried from several different boxes; same result each time.

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I've had someone restart the daemon on the remote system (/etc/init.d/sshd restart). The task completed without error.

Still no joy.

WTF folks?? I've never seen this error message before. What direction should I be heading off in? I can't get into the box to check error logs, I can't get into the box to do anything. I've thought about asking someone to power cycle the system, but if restarting the daemon didn't fix the problem, am I gaining anything with a reboot?

Any thoughts or ideas much appreciated.

Best,
/tom Received on Wed Dec 4 18:41:54 2002