Hi, We create virtual machine image templates by doing automated minimal installations of different Linux distributions (via preseed/kickstarter/autoyast). At the end of the installation, we remove the SSH host keys (rm -f /etc/ssh/ssh*_key*). Fresh SSH host keys will be generated on the first boot of the image instances. This is done by adding a "dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server" call in /etc/rc.local (which calls ssh-keygen) on Debian/Ubuntu and by the init script of sshd on the other distributions. This leads to working SSH server running on the virtual machines most of the times, but sometimes the SSH connection fails with "connection reset by peer". The investigation of Debian 7 "wheezy" images showed that these faulty machines have empty (zero byte) SSH host key files. These files do not exist before the machines are started, but they do exist before "dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server" is called. So it seems that some process creates these empty SSH host key files. Can you help to further debugging this strange behavior? Does sshd create SSH host keys? -- Benjamin Drung System Developer Debian & Ubuntu Developer ProfitBricks GmbH Greifswalder Str. 207 D - 10405 Berlin Email: benjamin.drung@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx URL: http://www.profitbricks.com Sitz der Gesellschaft: Berlin. Registergericht: Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, HRB 125506B. Geschäftsführer: Andreas Gauger, Achim Weiss. _______________________________________________ openssh-unix-dev mailing list openssh-unix-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.mindrot.org/mailman/listinfo/openssh-unix-dev