Bug#1137216: systemd-ssh-generator does not create sshd-vsock.socket during boot

[Michael Prokop]

Hi,

* Jared Epp [Wed May 20, 2026 at 11:09:19PM -0600]:

> After updating a Debian guest from 13.4 to 13.5, which updates systemd from
> 257.9-1~deb13u1 to 257.13-1~deb13u1, I found I could no longer ssh into the
> guest using 'ssh qemu/guestname' on the host. I got the following error:
> 
> ***
> $ ssh qemu/guestname
> ERROR processVsock:261 : Failed to connect to vsock (cid=3 port=22) : Connection reset by peer
> 
> mm_receive_fd: recvmsg: expected received 1 got 0
> proxy dialer did not pass back a connection
> ***
> 
> I also noticed this error in the journal for the guest when it boots:
> 
> ***
> May 19 18:59:24 kernel: NET: Registered PF_VSOCK protocol family
> May 19 18:59:24 systemd-ssh-generator[284]: Failed to query local AF_VSOCK CID: Cannot assign requested address
> May 19 18:59:24 (sd-exec-[273]: /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-ssh-generator failed with exit status 1.
> ***
> 
> I tried rolling systemd back to 257.8-1~deb13u1 on the guest and rebooting it,
> and it fixes the issue.  I would have gone back to 257.9-1~deb13u1, but .8 and
> .13 are the only versions in the repo right now.
> 
> Rather than rolling systemd back, a workaround is to connect to the guest
> another way, use 'systemctl daemon-reload', and then manually start the socket
> with 'systemctl start sshd-vsock.socket'.  This has to be done every time the
> guest boots.
> 
> The first time I noticed this bug, reportbug asked me to report it upstream
> instead.  I did report it here https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/42188
> but they said that it seems to be a Debian specific issue.

I stumbled upon a similar issue which might be related:

  # journalctl | grep systemd-ssh-generator
  Jun 16 02:16:43 foobar systemd-ssh-generator[276]: Failed to query local AF_VSOCK CID: Cannot assign requested address
  Jun 16 02:16:43 foobar (sd-exec-[267]: /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-ssh-generator failed with exit status 1.
  Jun 16 02:16:44 foobar systemd[1]: Listening on sshd-unix-local.socket - OpenSSH Server Socket (systemd-ssh-generator, AF_UNIX Local).
  Jun 16 02:17:12 foobar systemd-ssh-generator[8053]: Failed to query local AF_VSOCK CID: Cannot assign requested address
  Jun 16 02:17:12 foobar (sd-exec-[8044]: /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-ssh-generator failed with exit status 1.
  Jun 16 02:17:21 foobar systemd-ssh-generator[8103]: Failed to query local AF_VSOCK CID: Cannot assign requested address
  Jun 16 02:17:21 foobar (sd-exec-[8094]: /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-ssh-generator failed with exit status 1.
  Jun 16 02:17:45 foobar (sd-exec-[11260]: /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-ssh-generator failed with exit status 1.
  Jun 16 02:17:45 foobar systemd-ssh-generator[11269]: Failed to query local AF_VSOCK CID: Cannot assign requested address
  Jun 16 02:17:46 foobar (sd-exec-[11287]: /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-ssh-generator failed with exit status 1.
  Jun 16 02:17:46 foobar systemd-ssh-generator[11296]: Failed to query local AF_VSOCK CID: Cannot assign requested address

I couldn't find the corresponding branch/tag for
trixie's systemd 257.13-1~deb13u1 at
https://salsa.debian.org/systemd-team/systemd.git - but AFAICS
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/8c3acba63b40cd0ebcb9863804e598744eda0b80 +
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/3bfdc950f7eae022814121a232ed067d2a8e1701 +
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/e1789bfa5ff5502f6b28d85e76a5e0ec4a6c0d9a
might be relevant here?

regards
-mika-
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