Solved: ESX server SSH login only works from local lan

Hello
For some reason I can't seem to SSH into a recently deployed ESX server 7.0u2 when I am not "sitting" on the LAN. Despite having correct user / pass I get "permission denied".

This is my sshd config - anything obvious ?

# Version 7.0.2.1


# running from inetd
# Port 22
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key


# Fips mode restricts ciphers to only FIPS-permitted ciphers
# FipsMode yes


# vPP FCS_SSH_EXT.1.7: rekey after 1GB, 1H (instead of default 4GB for AES)
RekeyLimit 1G, 1H


SyslogFacility auth
LogLevel info


PermitRootLogin yes


PrintMotd yes


TCPKeepAlive yes


# Key algorithms used in SSHv2 handshake
# (ed25519 not allowed by current FIPS module)
KexAlgorithms ecdh-sha2-nistp256,ecdh-sha2-nistp384,ecdh-sha2-nistp521,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,diffie-hellman-group16-sha512,diffie-hellman-group18-sha512,diffie-hellman-group14-sha256
HostKeyAlgorithms ecdsa-sha2-nistp256,ecdsa-sha2-nistp384,ecdsa-sha2-nistp521,rsa-sha2-256,rsa-sha2-512
Ciphers aes256-gcm@openssh.com,aes128-gcm@openssh.com,aes256-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes128-ctr
MACs hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512


UsePAM yes
# only use PAM challenge-response (keyboard-interactive)
PasswordAuthentication yes


Banner /etc/issue


Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/vmware/openssh/bin/sftp-server -f LOCAL5 -l INFO


AuthorizedKeysFile /etc/ssh/keys-%u/authorized_keys


# Timeout value of 10 mins. The default value of ClientAliveCountMax is 3.
# Hence, we get a  3 * 200 = 600 seconds timeout if the client has been
# unresponsive.
ClientAliveCountMax 3
ClientAliveInterval 200


# sshd(8) will refuse connection attempts with a probability of "rate/100"
# (30%) if there are currently "start" (10) unauthenticated connections.  The
# probability increases linearly and all connection attempts are refused if the
# number of unauthenticated connections reaches "full" (100)
MaxStartups 10:30:100


# ESXi is not a proxy server
AllowTcpForwarding no
AllowStreamLocalForwarding no


# The following settings are all default values. They are repeated
# here to simplify auditing settings (for example, DoD STIG).
IgnoreRhosts yes
HostbasedAuthentication no
PermitEmptyPasswords no
PermitUserEnvironment no
StrictModes no
Compression no
GatewayPorts no
X11Forwarding no
AcceptEnv
PermitTunnel no


# The following settings are disabled during the OpenSSH build.
# They are commented out to avoid spurious warnings in log files.
#GSSAPIAuthentication no
#KerberosAuthentication no

Open in new window