Server Refused Public Key (ssh)

[CherryCloche]

I've been trying to fix this problem all morning, and I'm not getting anywhere. I'm hoping someone can help.

1) I used puttygen to generate an SSH2/RSA public-private key pair.
2) I copied the contents of the generated key to /home/cifftp/.ssh/authorized_keys
3) I am running pageant.exe, and I loaded my private key into it.
4) I also changed my Putty session to use my private key for authentication, although it's probably not necessary if I'm also running pageant.
5) I verified the permissions on my /home/cifftp/.ssh/authorized_keys file, and they are '-rw-r--r--'
My /home/cifftp/.ssh directory is 'drwxr-xr-x'

When I connect with putty or with pscp, it tells me that the server refused the public key.

My putty log is telling me the following:
Reading d:\ssh-private.ppk
Offered public key
Server refused public key


Here's what my sshd.config file looks like:
Port 22
#Protocol 2,1
ListenAddress 132.10.10.99
#ListenAddress ::

# HostKey for protocol version 1
#HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key
# HostKeys for protocol version 2
#HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
#HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
# Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key
#KeyRegenerationInterval 1h
ServerKeyBits 1024

# Logging
#obsoletes QuietMode and FascistLogging
#SyslogFacility AUTH
SyslogFacility AUTHPRIV
#LogLevel INFO

# Authentication:

#LoginGraceTime 2m
PermitRootLogin no
#StrictModes yes
#MaxAuthTries 6

RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys

# For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts
RhostsRSAAuthentication no
# similar for protocol version 2
#HostbasedAuthentication no
# Change to yes if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for
# RhostsRSAAuthentication and HostbasedAuthentication
#IgnoreUserKnownHosts no
# Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files
IgnoreRhosts yes

# To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
#PasswordAuthentication yes
AllowUsers cifftp laura_b

# Change to no to disable s/key passwords
#ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no

# Kerberos options
#KerberosAuthentication no
#KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes
#KerberosTicketCleanup yes
#KerberosGetAFSToken no

# GSSAPI options
#GSSAPIAuthentication no
GSSAPIAuthentication yes
#GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes
GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes

# Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing,
# and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will
# be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication mechanism.
# Depending on your PAM configuration, this may bypass the setting of
# PasswordAuthentication, PermitEmptyPasswords, and
# "PermitRootLogin without-password". If you just want the PAM account and
# session checks to run without PAM authentication, then enable this but set
# ChallengeResponseAuthentication=no
#UsePAM no
UsePAM yes

#AllowTcpForwarding yes
#GatewayPorts no
#X11Forwarding no
X11Forwarding yes
#X11DisplayOffset 10
#X11UseLocalhost yes
#PrintMotd yes
#PrintLastLog yes
#TCPKeepAlive yes
#UseLogin no
#UsePrivilegeSeparation yes
#PermitUserEnvironment no
#Compression yes
#ClientAliveInterval 0
#ClientAliveCountMax 3
#UseDNS yes
#PidFile /var/run/sshd.pid
#MaxStartups 10

# no default banner path
Banner /etc/ssh/banner

# override default of no subsystems
Subsystem sftp /usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server

[Jman]

Check out this troubleshooter (http://sial.org/howto/openssh/publickey-auth/problems/).

Also check the event log for diagnostics (http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/0.53b/htmldoc/Chapter10.html#10.7).