ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed In university I normally SSH into the computer sciences server. However today I keep getting the following error: ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host. SSHing with -v flags gives me the following.

OpenSSH_5.9p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8r 8 Feb 2011
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh_config line 20: Applying options for *
debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0
debug1: Connecting to ... [...] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug3: Incorrect RSA1 identifier
debug3: Could not load "~/.ssh/id_rsa" as a RSA1 public key
debug1: identity file ~/.ssh/id_rsa type 1
debug1: identity file ~/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1
debug1: identity file ~/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: identity file ~/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host


I've tried editing the hosts files but that won't help. Any suggestions?
I ran into this same exact issue. My system log reflected: 

/var/empty must be owned by root and not group or world-writable


Going to Disk Utility &gt; Macintosh HD &gt; Repair Disk Permissions reset the permissions of /var/empty and solved the problem for me.