ssh compatibility question

[William H. Magill]

Ok, I have FreeBSD 5.3 running on one Alpha and Tru64 Unix on another. 
Yet another machine runs OS X 10.3.7.

The simple problem is --

OSX and Tru64   have no trouble communicating via SSH.
OSX and FreeBSD have no trouble communicating via SSH.
Free BSD and Tru64 don't get along.

OS X runs: (from debug -vvv)
OpenSSH_3.6.1p1+CAN-2004-0175, SSH protocols 1.5/2.0, OpenSSL 0x0090702f

When connecting to Tru64 It reports:
debug1: Remote protocol version 1.5, remote software version 1.2.27

=======================
FreeBSD is running: (from debug -vvv)
OpenSSH_3.8.1p1 FreeBSD-20040419, OpenSSL 0.9.7d 17 Mar 2004

It dies before the "Remote protocol" message would be reported.

debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0
debug1: Connecting to xxxxx [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /home/magill/.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /home/magill/.ssh/id_rsa type -1
debug1: identity file /home/magill/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

=======================
Tru64 is runing (-V)
SSH Version 1.2.27 [alpha-dec-osf5.1], protocol version 1.5.
Standard version.  Does not use RSAREF.

and it fails (attempting to connect to FreeBSD)

xxx: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version 
OpenSSH_3.8.1p1 FreeBSD-20040419
xxx Waiting for server public key.
Local: Bad packet length 1349676916.

(It connects to an OSX 10.2.8 system with no problem:
Remote protocol version 1.99, remote software version 
OpenSSH_3.4p1+CAN-2004-0175)

=======================

"Obviously" its a version mis-match problem.

"Theoretically" I should be able to tell Freebsd to use version 1.5 ... 
but that apparently isn't an option.

So the two questions are:

1- Short of upgrading ssh on Tru64 (assuming that there is a newer 
version floating around, I haven't looked yet) is there a way to get 
ssh on FreeBSD to talk to version 1.5?

2- Any idea what the "Bad packet length" problem is all about?
     Will "Mac hmac-md5" fix that problem?



T.T.F.N.
William H. Magill
# Beige G3 - Rev A motherboard - 768 Meg
# Flat-panel iMac (2.1) 800MHz - Super Drive - 768 Meg
# PWS433a [Alpha 21164 Rev 7.2 (EV56)- 64 Meg]-Tru64 5.1a
# XP1000  [Alpha 21264-3 (EV6) - 256 meg] Open BSD 3.6
# XP1000  [Alpha 21264-A (EV 6.7) - 384 meg] FreeBSD
magill at mcgillsociety.org
magill at acm.org
magill at mac.com
whmagill at gmail.com