Putty error: Server unexpectedly closed network connection

[gboyce at badbelly.com (gboyce)]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006, Bill Horne wrote:

> I'm getting an error when attempting to access my home server with ssh:
>
> "Server unexpectedly closed network connection"
>
> I'm working through the Google results, but in the meantime I've got a 
> customer waiting and I'm on vacation and I would really like to solve this 
> problem quickly, so if anyone has a solution please reply.

I've seen this happen on servers that have suffered a hardware failure on 
occasion.  An inline IPS configured to block SSH connections could also 
cause this sort of behavior.

For the first case, there's not too much you can do.  For the second case, 
if you can find a different source of Internet access you may have better 
luck.

Someone else may have an alternate cause as well though.