[cs631apue] Connecting to Netbsd running on VM

[Jan Schaumann]

Brian Jefferson <bjeffer1 at stevens.edu> wrote:
> and now when I try to ssh, its like its just waiting
> for something to happen, but nothing ever does.

A connection timing out is generally a sign that
something in between the client and the server is
dropping the packets.  ('Connection refused' means the
server could be reached, but nothing is listening on
the given port; 'connection closed' means the
connection was actively interrupted (e.g., a TCP
reset); 'Permission denied' means the user is not
allowed to log in (for whatever reason, such as
invalid password or invalid user etc.).)

This can happen for a few reasons:
- a host-based firewall on the host OS is blocking
  packets to the target destination IP and/or port
- a host-based firewall on the target system is
  dropping packets
- the packets time out in transit, but firewalls or
  router ACLs block ICMP packets
- your port-forwarding traffic to wrong destination

I don't know how your parent system is set up, but if
you see connections to the VM time out, check whether
or not you have a firewall that blocks traffic to
localhost, and double-check that you have your
port-forwarding set up correctly.

-Jan

P.S.: When debugging ssh, always use the '-v' flag to
get a bit more information of what it's doing.