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how can i stop and start ssh with debug and write out a log to a specific text file in AIX UNIX

Hello i have got the following request, please assist with it. I believe Tectia is an ssh team.

"TECTIA is requesting the SSH server in the Unix side (AIX SERVER), be stopped
and restarted with DEBUG and have the server write out the log to a
specific text file "logfile.txt" that can be forwrded to them. "

Please assist me with figuring out how i can stop and start ssh with debug and write out a log to a specific text file.
How can i enable and disable debug mode
Thanks.
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ASKER

Thank you for that.
Can you tell me what output following commands put in logfile.txt /usr/sbin/sshd -d -d -d 2> logfile.txt

Is this command /usr/sbin/sshd -d -d -d 2> logfile.txt
equivalent to your process of stopping and starting ssh with DEBUG
Not quite equivalent!

Your command will indeed force sshd to write debug messages to the system log (the more "-d" flags the more detail in the output.)
This means that you will have to configure syslog anyway regardless of the method used.

"logfile.txt" in your example will only contain startup and termination messages, not the full debugging output, which goes, as stated, to syslog.

But attention: When started with "-d" sshd will not go into background automatically, it will not fork, so only one single connection is accepted, and sshd will terminate when this connection ends.

So the "-d" feature is only meant for a one-time debugging run. For longer-term recording of debugging messages and for debugging of multiple (maybe parallel) sessions you should use the "option loglevel" method instead of the "-d flag" method.

wmp
Thank you for that. One more "dumb" question about this topic.
can you tell me what debug is , i tried searching for it on the net, it seems as if debuging is to troubleshoot a problem by viewing it's error. But i would really appreciate if you can give me a straight to the point explanation of debug.

Thank you once again.
A "bug" is how we call a defect in hardware, the OS, application software or in a configuration which commonly would lead to a malfunction some way.

"Debugging" thus means finding and eliminating such an error, making the concerned component work again.

So "debug log / debug message" is a bit wrong, it's the short form for "a message or a logfile entry which could help us in debugging (i.e. finding a hardware/software/configuration error)".

"Bug" itself traces back to very early engineering speech, and there is also a nice story -

(quoting, see below):

In 1946, when Hopper was released from active duty, she joined the Harvard Faculty at the Computation Laboratory where she continued her work on the Mark II and Mark III. Operators traced an error in the Mark II to a moth trapped in a relay, coining the term bug. This bug was carefully removed and taped to the log book. Stemming from the first bug, today we call errors or glitch's [sic] in a program a bug.

Find the above quote and more info in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug

wmp
Interesting story. Thank you.