I feel more input is needed. So please post the result of following command $ egrep -v '^$|^#' /etc/ssh/sshd_config the output of this egrep is ListenAddress 0.0.0.0 SyslogFacility AUTHPRIV LogLevel INFO PasswordAuthentication yes ChallengeResponseAuthentication no GSSAPIAuthentication yes GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes UsePAM yes X11Forwarding yes Subsystem sftp /usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server Depending how you edited the sshd_config file it may be a good idea to run "dos2unix" against it (be sure it has chmod 600 afterwards). I did this. Do you use public key authentication? google search brought me an old still open Debian bug ticket No, I was trying to make it work.I have configured CVS on this Server itself and from windows through Wincvs i was trying to access it through SSH protocol with key based access.But I was not successful in getting key based access working properly. So do a "strace" or a "bash -x /etc/init.d/sshd start". The output of strace -x /etc/init.d/sshd start I have only posted the output which was in "Red Color". write(1, "FAILED", 6FAILED) = 6 rt_sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, NULL, [], 8) = 0 rt_sigprocmask(SIG_SETMASK, [], NULL, 8) = 0 write(1, "\33[0;39m", 7) = 7 the output of bash -x /etc/init.d/sshd start I have only posted the output which was in "Red Color". + echo -n FAILED FAILED+ '[' color = color ']' + echo -en '\033[0;39m' Still the problem is persisting Please guide me Thanks & Regards Ankush Grover