Problem Statement
Could not connect to the Linux machine through SSH.
Error Message
While starting the service, it will look for the symlink (softlink) to the 'localtime,' and if it is unable to find it, then it will result in the following error message –
Starting sshd: Missing privilege separation directory: /var/empty/sshd
Solution
We accessed this Linux machine from the console and fired the following commands to fix this issue –
mkdir /var/empty/sshd/etc
cd /var/empty/sshd/etc
ln -s /etc/localtime localtime