If you are trying to setup Public-Key Authentication and see this error in the logs:
Authentication refused: bad ownership or modes for directory
Your problem is related to permissions and/or ownership.
The following commands on the user account you are trying to setup should fix the problem:
chmod go-w ~/ chmod 700 ~/.ssh chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
If that doesn’t work make sure you check, denyhosts, pam system-auth config and your sshd_config.