# Need help with ssh connection **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [February 2, 2015, 8:03pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/need-help-with-ssh-connection/17425 "2015-02-02T20:03:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Drew\_Marold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Drew\_Marold](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Drew_Marold)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 8:03pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/need-help-with-ssh-connection/17425/1 "2015-02-02T20:03:13Z")
I’m trying to use Ansible for remotely controlling outlets on a networked power distribution unit in a rack. I can manually ssh to it fine, but whenever I try to do it with Ansible, it can’t connect, and the -vvvv is not giving me anything useful. I tried using both the paramiko and ssh connections, neither worked, or provided any info. [dmarold@drewtest ansible]$ ansible rack1\_pdu -m raw -a ‘help’ -c paramiko -vvvv [WARNING]: The version of gmp you have installed has a known issue regarding timing vulnerabilities when used with pycrypto. If possible, you should update it (i.e. yum update gmp). \<10.26.1.129\> ESTABLISH CONNECTION FOR USER: apc on PORT 22 TO 10.26.1.129 rack1\_pdu | FAILED =\> FAILED: No existing session [dmarold@drewtest ansible]$ ansible rack1\_pdu -m raw -a ‘help’ -vvvv [WARNING]: The version of gmp you have installed has a known issue regarding timing vulnerabilities when used with pycrypto. If possible, you should update it (i.e. yum update gmp). \<10.26.1.129\> ESTABLISH CONNECTION FOR USER: apc \<10.26.1.129\> EXEC sshpass -d6 ssh -C -tt -vvv -o ControlMaster=auto -o ControlPersist=60s -o ControlPath=“/users/dmarold/.ansible/cp/ansible-ssh-%h-%p-%r” -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o Port=22 -o GSSAPIAuthentication=no -o PubkeyAuthentication=no -o User=apc -o ConnectTimeout=10 10.26.1.129 help rack1\_pdu | FAILED =\> SSH Error: data could not be sent to the remote host. Make sure this host can be reached over ssh [dmarold@drewtest ansible]$ ssh [apc@10.26.1.129](mailto:apc@10.26.1.129) [apc@10.26.1.129](mailto:apc@10.26.1.129)’s password: American Power Conversion Network Management Card AOS v6.1.3 (c) Copyright 2013 All Rights Reserved RPDU 2g v6.0.9 ---
**Author:** ![Drew\_Marold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Drew\_Marold](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Drew_Marold)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 8:19pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/need-help-with-ssh-connection/17425/2 "2015-02-02T20:19:41Z")
> Further data point: If I try to use the command module instead of raw, while it still fails, I do at least get the debugging output, and it looks like the initial connection succeeds, but then it fails when it tries to run a bunch of shell commands which obviously are not valid in AOS. debug1: Next authentication method: password debug3: packet\_send2: adding 8 (len 51 padlen 5 extra\_pad 64) debug2: we sent a password packet, wait for reply debug3: Wrote 80 bytes for a total of 1485 debug1: Authentication succeeded (password). debug1: setting up multiplex master socket ---
**Author:** ![John\_Oliver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/97f17d/32.png) [@John\_Oliver](https://forum.ansible.com/u/John_Oliver)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 8:21pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/need-help-with-ssh-connection/17425/3 "2015-02-02T20:21:35Z")
Can you just ‘ssh rack1\_pdu’? Or do you have to ‘ssh user@rack1\_pdu’ and supply a password? You can add ‘-u username’ to your ansible command line. Does your PDU support SSH public keys? I’ve always used keypairs with ansible, so aren’t sure how you’d pass a password along. ---
**Author:** ![Drew\_Marold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Drew\_Marold](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Drew_Marold)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 8:29pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/need-help-with-ssh-connection/17425/4 "2015-02-02T20:29:34Z")
If you look at the bottom of the first post I did ssh to it from the Linux command line. It doesn’t have a dns name, so I have a host\_vars file defining the IP, and a group\_vars file specifying username & password for all the APC gear. Just to be thorough I did just try with the -u but that didn’t help (nor does using -k and specifying a password). Unfortunately this doesn’t support ssh keys so that’s not an option. ---
**Author:** ![Drew\_Marold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Drew\_Marold](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Drew_Marold)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 9:47pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/need-help-with-ssh-connection/17425/5 "2015-02-02T21:47:59Z")
On further investigation, this appears to be an issue with the ssh server built into the PDU rather than an Ansible issue. While I can ssh to it for an interactive session, if I try to just send a command like ‘ssh [apc@10.26.1.129](mailto:apc@10.26.1.129) olstatus 6’ it connects but the session closes before I get the response, and I think that’s what’s happening to the Ansible connection. If anyone has ever successfully used this with APC gear I’d love to hear about it. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_McCoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ebca7d/32.png) [@Mark\_McCoy](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Mark_McCoy)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/need-help-with-ssh-connection/17425/6 "2015-02-02T22:20:05Z")
The device might use a non-standard SSH daemon that only implements enough of the SSH protocol to allow remote interactive logins, but not enough to allow the types of non-interactive connections that Ansible is trying to make. Try your test from the command line with and without the -T and -t flags (-T disables pseudo-tty allocation, while -t forces pseudo-tty allocation). > ssh -t [apc@10.26.1.129](mailto:apc@10.26.1.129) olstatus 6 > > ssh -T [apc@10.26.1.129](mailto:apc@10.26.1.129) olstatus 6 If the first one works, and the second one doesn’t, then you will need to add an entry into your ~/.ssh/config like this: > Host 10.26.1.129 > > RequireTTY This will always ensure that the client requests a pseudo-tty, even when running non-interactively. ---
**Author:** ![Drew\_Marold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Drew\_Marold](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Drew_Marold)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 3:09pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/need-help-with-ssh-connection/17425/7 "2015-02-04T15:09:02Z")
Unfortunately neither -t option made any difference. I’m going to just fall back & use Expect for these things. Thanks for the suggestions.