public key authentication fails, falls back to root password prompt.

Hi, All

i have a problem with one, and only one, of my many AIX servers that's driving me nuts. i'm running OpenSSH 3.1 on AIX 4.3.3. i have an ssh-agent running on my AIX workstation. i have loaded the public keys for my root userids on all the AIX servers into "authorized_keys2". this enables me to ssh without having to enter a passphrase or password. however, on one server i can't for the life of me seem to get this to work. when i try to connect i firstly get prompted for the passphrase of my public key. when i enter this i then get prompted for the root password. when i enter the root password i get connected. i have generated debug3 output on both the server and client side of this mess but i can't see anything in it that looks like an error. i'm sure there must be something different about the server in question but i'm damned if can see what. HELP!!!!!

Jim Lane
Sr. Technical Consultant
Network Services
Toronto Hydro
office: (416)-542-2820
cell: (416)-896-8576