Error: WHM Cpanel sshd: /var/empty/sshd must be owned by root and not group or world-writable is reported via email notifications.

Note: Our server is running Centos

 

Server	cpanel2.interactivewebs.com
Primary IPAddress	xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Service Name	sshd
Service Status	failed ⛔
Notification	The service “sshd” appears to be down.
Service Check Method	The system’s command to check or to restart this service failed.
Number of Restart Attempts	19
Service Check Raw Output	(XID cg7fzv) The “sshd” service is down. The subprocess “/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/restartsrv_sshd” reported error number 3 when it ended.
Startup Log	Dec 07 02:34:37 xx.interactivewebs.com systemd[1]: Failed to start OpenSSH server daemon. Dec 07 02:34:37 xx.interactivewebs.com systemd[1]: Unit sshd.service entered failed state. Dec 07 02:34:37 xx.interactivewebs.com systemd[1]: sshd.service failed.
Log Messages	Dec 7 02:34:37 cpanel2 sshd: /var/empty/sshd must be owned by root and not group or world-writable.
Memory Information	Used 1.12 GB Available 14.01 GB Installed 15.13 GB
Load Information	0.00 0.01 0.07
Uptime	1 hour, 30 minutes, and 42 seconds
IOStat Information	avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle 4.15 0.01 0.18 0.02 0.00 95.64 Device: tps kB_read/s kB_wrtn/s kB_read kB_wrtn sda 7.43 185.24 24.84 1007925 135152 dm-0 4.69 146.09 17.67 794896 96128 dm-1 0.02 0.41 0.00 2228 0 dm-2 2.62 33.66 6.80 183144 36976
Top Processes	PID Owner CPU% Memory % Command 5182 root 18.07 0.09 /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/restartsrv_cpanel_dovecot_solr 5080 root 5.88 0.17 tailwatchd – chkservd – cpanel-dovecot-solr check 5138 root 1.20 0.01 dovecot/auth -w 5167 root 0.72 0.00 [whostmgrd – ser] 5108 dovecot 0.68 0.02 dovecot/auth

 

The Fix

1. Login to WHM and click on terminal

Type these 3 commands into there terminal window:

# chown root:root /var/empty/sshd 

# chmod 711 /var/empty/sshd 

# ls -ld /var/empty/sshd

 

2. Restart the ssh Daemon in WHM