SSHD on Windows 2003 - "Win32 error 1053"

["Aitken, Sean" <Sean dot Aitken at tekelec dot com>]

Greetings all!

I have been banging against a problem for the past couple of days and I
believe that I've exhausted all resources.  The problem in short is:
I can't get sshd to run as a service on Windows Server 2003 (Win2K3)

The long story is this:
I followed all directions as posted in the docs. I used
"ssh-host-config" to do the initial configuration.

Prerequisits that were performed:
- I am a local admin
- The machine is on a domain, so I "mkpassword -l -d ..." and "mkgroup
-l -d ..." for the environment beforehand
- I ensured the machine had the latest patches (for Windows)
- Ensured the the mount points for Cygwin were added under
"LOCAL_MACHINE" (I chose "all users" during setup)

Actions followed:
- Ran configuration app (ssh-host-config)
- Options chosen were all "yes"
- CYGWIN variables tried: ntsec tty (based on some reference found on
the net)
- Both the "sshd" and "sshd_server" accounts were created, sshd being
disabled and "sshd_server" I enabled 'password does not expire' flag

At that time, I confirmed the service was created, which is was. I then
tried to start it. The error I got was:
"
cygrunsrv: Error starting a service: QueryServiceStatus:  Win32 error
1053:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely
fashion.
"

So, as a test, I used Windows' "runas" feature to log in as
'sshd_server'. (I did have to enable 'log on locally' for this account
in the local policies.

- I performed "runas user:dcesap08\sshd_server c:\cygwin\cygwin.bat",
which worked.
- At the prompt, I ran "/usr/sbin/sshd -D". It worked!
- I tested the server and was able to connect and authenticate!
- I also tried "/usr/sbin/sshd". That worked, too!

Some other things I've looked at:
- CYGWIN env variable has been used as system wide environment var as
well as with "cygrunsrv -I ..."
- I have installed the service manually with "cygrunsrv", still no
difference.
- I have used NT File Monitor for looking for file permission issues;
none were found.
- NT Registry Monitor also showed nothing interesting.
- Ensured the 'sshd_server' user was added to the various policies: 'Run
as service', 'Create token', 'Act as part of the OS'.. Many of these
were already set, but I was just making sure.

So, here I stand. A very functional Cygwin install, a new server, and a
bottle of frustration. If anyone has any pointers to a solution, then
please let me know! In the meantime, I think I might just log in and
manually run the server using 'runas'. We need this to work.

Best regards!
-- 
Sean F. Aitken

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