I'm trying to connect to my iMac (server) from my macbook (client) on my LAN. Both have Mac OS X 10.6.4. Server running on a new clean install of the OS. When just activating Remote Login in System Preferences everything works fine. But when setting up ssh to only work with public/private key I get the following error messages from the server log depending on if I use a rsa passphrase or not: With passphrase (case 1): PAM: user account has expired for <myServerUserName> from 192.168.X.X via 192.168.X.Y Without passphrase (case 2): Failed publickey for <myServerUserName> from 192.168.X.X port AAAAA ssh2 This is my setup algorithm: Create a private and public key on client with command ssh-keygen -t rsa. In case 1 I also set a passphrase. Move the id_rsa.pub to the server path /Users/<myServerUserName>/.ssh/ In this folder I execute cat id_rsa.pub > authorized_keys Making sure Remote Login isn't active, I now execute sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -d on the server. Back on the client I now type ssh -v -v -v <myServerUserName>@192.168.X.Y and get prompted to accept RSA key fingerprint. This is NOT the same fingerprint as the one from when I created the private/public key (should it be?). I accept. Depending on case: CASE 1: Client gets halted for password and the response is permission denied even though correct password is given. Back on the server I can read the error message I stated above for case 1: PAM: user account has expired... CASE 2: Client gets message Connection closed by 192.168.X.Y. Back on the server I can read the error message I stated above for case 2: Failed publickey... What could possibly cause this?