Re: sshd trouble right out of the box :(

> On 05 Jul 2025, at 02:05, fatty.merchandise677@aceecat.org wrote:
> 
> On a fresh Vultr.com instance running FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE, sshd
> periodically (ie. every few hours) logs the following message, and
> then dies. So I have to restart the server to get in :eyeroll:
> 
>    sshd[1015]: fatal: pack_hostkeys: serialize hostkey private:
>    string is too large
> 
> Ducking finds nothing relevant. Anyone, please?

Try regenerating your hostkeys with 
# ssh-keygen -A

Also, if you haven’t yet, update to the latest patches released this week.
# freebsd-update fetch
# freebsd-update install

Run
#freebsd-update IDS
It should tell you if any installed files are changed. Normally it lists quite a few files in /etc which is OK
If it lists /etc/ssh/sshd_config and you haven’t made changes yourself have a look what’s going on.

Regards
Arnold