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User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050719 Fedora/1.7.10-1.3.1

Description of problem:
When sshd option 'PermitRootLogin' is set to 'forced-commands-only', forced commands to the root account do not work. The client is prompted for password (even though there is a valid key), and then denied access.

Oddly enough, When 'PermitRootLogin' is set to 'without-password', root is allowed in.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
openssh-3.9p1

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. On server, edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Set 'PermitRootLogin' to 'forced-commands-only'
2. service sshd restart
3. install a public key to root's .ssh/authorized_keys file
4. go to a remote client and issue the command:
    ssh root@<server hostname> id

  

Actual Results:  you are propted for root's password, 3 times, and then denied access.

Expected Results:  ssh should log in, issue the 'id' command, and then log out.


Additional info:

This has been broken for several releases. I believe that this used to work in RHL9. It did not work in RHEL3, and does not work in RHEL4