SSH tells me "Too many authentication failures"

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1
SYSTEM INFORMATION
OS type and version AlmaLinux 10.2
Virtualmin version 8.3 Pro

Generally I would say the problem is obvious, however, there was not a single login attempt from my end (my IP address) before the one which raised this error message. Since I am using SSH also for other users, I wonder if this could cause the problem? I checked the /var/log/secure file, there it’s the same, the first login attempt creates an entry like: error: maximum authentication attempts exceeded for username from my.ip.add.ress
I have checked if someone attempted to login with my username, but that is not the case. Again this is the first login attempt within more than 24 hours. Only the IP address has been used with another user, but the logins were all successfull, not a single failed one.
I also checked fail2ban, but that didn’t have the IP address in its sshd-jail.
Any ideas why this could happen?

2

Are you using key-based auth (even if it’s just enabled and you’re not using it, we were just discussing using it in another thread, so I assume it is enabled), and have a bunch of private keys on your machine? That leads to several login attempts most of which will fail…it’s possible to run through all five of the default failures without ever successfully logging in. I run into this a lot, as I have several keys for different purposes (my work key, my virtualmin key, my personal projects key, some deploy keys, etc.) as I’m paranoid. I have to use a config file to make sure the right key is the first one sent.

3

Thank you, I suspected that, too. What kind of config-file? Do you have an example?

4

Never mind. I found it (~/.ssh/config) and configured it accordingly. Somehow it wasn’t set right.