A quick google gave the following URL

http://lists.debian.org/debian-ssh/2005/07/msg00082.html

which indicated:
----------------------------------
Problem with "pam_setcred(): Permission denied" error message and normal login fixed by switching

PermitEmptyPassword yes

in /etc/ssh/sshd_config to

PermitEmptyPassword no

recomended setting
----------------------------------
Andy 

On Wed, 9 Nov 2005 15:54 , 'Daniel P. Berrange' <dan@berrange.com> sent:

>On Wed, Nov 09, 2005 at 03:48:35PM +0000, Rich Walker wrote:
>
>> 
>
>> Hi,
>
>> 
>
>> I recently upgraded one of our machines, and now can't do 
>
>> 
>
>>   ssh -X root@thoth 
>
>> 
>
>> to it any more.
>
>> 
>
>> Login as a normal user still works.
>
>> 
>
>> /var/log/auth.log suggests pam is causing problems:
>
>> 
>
>> Nov  9 15:42:31 thoth sshd[8093]: (pam_unix) authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty=ssh ruser= rhost=gateway.shadow.local  user=root
>
>> Nov  9 15:42:35 thoth sshd[8093]: Accepted keyboard-interactive/pam for root from 10.1.1.17 port 43186 ssh2
>
>> Nov  9 15:42:35 thoth sshd[8093]: fatal: PAM: pam_setcred(): Permission denied
>
>> 
>
>> Any ideas where I should be looking?
>
>
>
>What is in your /etc/pam.d/sshd   config file (and any other PAM config
>
>files it might delegate to, such as system-auth) ?
>
>
>
>
>
>Dan.
>
>-- 
>
>|=-            GPG key: http://www.berrange.com/~dan/gpgkey.txt       -=|
>
>|=-       Perl modules: http://search.cpan.org/~danberr/              -=|
>
>|=-           Projects: http://freshmeat.net/~danielpb/               -=|
>
>|=-   berrange@redhat.com  -  Daniel Berrange  -  dan@berrange.com    -=|
>




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