12-12-2018, 10:07 PM
Thank you Jerry and Trindad for your suggestions and comments on the scp/sftp session failures now occurring in Linux Lite4.2. I understand that Linux Lite has specific goals with a specific target audience as most published projects do. Targeting Windows users transitioning to Linux on the desktop is a worthy goal which I heartily support (one of the workstations referred to in this post used to be a Windows 7 laptop). It would therefore seem important to us both that capabilities available in Linux Lite work properly without a lot of trouble. Transitioning Windows users, unfamiliar with the internals and configuration of the environment they are attempting to use, would become understandably discouraged with Linux on the desktop if capabilities they need to use (e.g., transferring files between their Windows and Linux systems) do not work as they are supposed to. A Windows user encountering such difficulties would be likely abandon their Linux transition plan.
My efforts so far to resolve this problem have resulted in the discovery that the Lite4.2 'sshd' is configured to authenticate and configure sessions with PAM (/etc/ssh/sshd_config: 'UsePAM yes') and that PAM is configured to post a dynamic motd (/run/motd.dynamic) in two places '/etc/pam.d/login' and '/etc/pam.d/sshd'. Commenting out the configuration line /etc/pam.d/sshd: 'session optional pam_motd.so motd=/run/motd.dynamic' does remove the extensive "blather" from the dynamic motd in 'ssh' logins but so far 'sftp' sessions still fail with "Received message too long 1466264675" and 'scp -p sourcefile localhost:/tmp' attempts still also fail after successful authentication. I'm still not sure what received message is still too long but will continue to work on a resolution and let you know what happens.
My efforts so far to resolve this problem have resulted in the discovery that the Lite4.2 'sshd' is configured to authenticate and configure sessions with PAM (/etc/ssh/sshd_config: 'UsePAM yes') and that PAM is configured to post a dynamic motd (/run/motd.dynamic) in two places '/etc/pam.d/login' and '/etc/pam.d/sshd'. Commenting out the configuration line /etc/pam.d/sshd: 'session optional pam_motd.so motd=/run/motd.dynamic' does remove the extensive "blather" from the dynamic motd in 'ssh' logins but so far 'sftp' sessions still fail with "Received message too long 1466264675" and 'scp -p sourcefile localhost:/tmp' attempts still also fail after successful authentication. I'm still not sure what received message is still too long but will continue to work on a resolution and let you know what happens.