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StarNetSSH: Bad packet length connecting to Solaris 9 server

Solaris 9 has a bug, introduced in a patch, that breaks X11 Forwarding for all ssh clients attempting to connect to Solaris 9 using X11 Forwarding (including all versions of X-Win32). The symptom of this bug is that a connection attempt with X11 Forwarding enabled is disconnected with a bad packet length error.

Solutions

  1. Install a replacement patch from Sun: Solaris 9 SSH X11 Forwarding Patch
  2. Disable IPv6 listening for the ssh server. The IPv6 functionality contains the bug that breaks X11 Forwarding, so limiting support to IPv4 only works-around the problem for servers that do not need IPv6 support.
    1. Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and change
      # IPv4 only
      #ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
      # IPv4 & IPv6
      ListenAddress ::
      to
      # IPv4 only
      ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
      # IPv4 & IPv6
      #ListenAddress ::
    2. Edit /etc/init.d/sshd and change
      [ -x /usr/lib/ssh/sshd ] && /usr/lib/ssh/sshd &
      to

      3. [ -x /usr/lib/ssh/sshd ] && /usr/lib/ssh/sshd -4 &
    3. Restart the daemon using the init.d script.

      Category:FAQ
      Category:Sessions -> SSH