Just posting this in case other people have the same issues I did. I got a new hard drive and moved a bunch of things over to it (including Cygwin), then replaced my old one - same drive letter and everything. Unfortunately, this screwed up a bunch of permissions. First it was complaining about write access to /var/empty, so I had to chmod and/or chown those (should have noted all this stuff down if I knew it was going to take 2 days to get it all back up and running again). I really didn't want to have to reconfigure everything, set up new keys, etc., but in retrospect, it would have probably been easier to just reinstall.
Edited /etc/sshd_config and added this line:
LogLevel DEBUG
Messages get logged to windows event viewer (control panel/administrative tools/event viewer/windows logs/application).
sshd: PID 1036: debug1: userauth-request for user jitspoe service ssh-connection method none
sshd: PID 1036: debug1: attempt 0 failures 0
sshd: PID 3740: User jitspoe not allowed because shell /bin/bash is not executable
sshd: PID 1036: input_userauth_request: invalid user jitspoe
sshd: PID 3740: Failed none for invalid user jitspoe from 70.85.9.178 port 49661 ssh2
sshd: PID 1036: debug1: userauth-request for user jitspoe service ssh-connection method publickey
sshd: PID 1036: debug1: attempt 1 failures 0
sshd: PID 1036: debug1: userauth-request for user jitspoe service ssh-connection method keyboard-interactive
chmod 700 /bin/bash
or chmod 777 /bin/bash
sshd: PID 2536: debug1: userauth-request for user jitspoe service ssh-connection method none
sshd: PID 2536: debug1: attempt 0 failures 0
sshd: PID 4808: Failed none for jitspoe from 70.85.9.178 port 51674 ssh2
sshd: PID 2536: debug1: userauth-request for user jitspoe service ssh-connection method publickey
sshd: PID 2536: debug1: attempt 1 failures 0
sshd: PID 2536: debug1: test whether pkalg/pkblob are acceptable
sshd: PID 4808: debug1: temporarily_use_uid: 1000/513 (e=1004/513)
sshd: PID 4808: debug1: trying public key file /var/empty/.ssh/authorized_keys
sshd: PID 4808: debug1: restore_uid: 1004/513
sshd: PID 4808: debug1: temporarily_use_uid: 1000/513 (e=1004/513)
sshd: PID 4808: debug1: trying public key file /var/empty/.ssh/authorized_keys
sshd: PID 4808: debug1: restore_uid: 1004/513
sshd: PID 4808: Failed publickey for jitspoe from 70.85.9.178 port 51674 ssh2
sshd: PID 2536: debug1: userauth-request for user jitspoe service ssh-connection method keyboard-interactive
Lets me log in with a password at least.
Edited /etc/sshd_config
RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys
To start the service manually:
cygrunsrv -S sshd
No go...
sshd: PID 4656: debug1: trying public key file //.ssh/authorized_keys
Commented the lines back out like they were originally:
#RSAAuthentication yes
#PubkeyAuthentication yes
#AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys
SUCCESS! For now.
This post isn't really meant to make sense. It's just for future reference and/or people searching google for answers.