Stumped - SSH keys work, then they don't

[schwach]

Hello All -

Let me start off by stating that I've read the manual, and combed through the forums before posting here. Ok, that stated, I have 2 boxes with the same setup/hardware running FreeNAS-11.2-U7. I'm attempting to do a simple ssh key share between FNAS-1 (Alpha), and FNAS-2 (Beta).

Other info: My 'home' directory on both boxes are set to UNIX, and I'm using a separate 'home-smb' for a Samba share.

I did the typical 'ssh-keygen' with no passphrase, and then ssh-copy-id from FNAS-1 to FNAS-2. After the key transfer, and update the perms for the private key (-rw-------), authorized_keys (-rw-------) and known hosts (-rw-r--r--). *This would work at first, but then stops working (prompts for a password) after some unspecified amount of time, say 24 hours.

Code:

[schwach@alpha ~/.ssh]$ ls -l
total 28
-rw-------  1 schwach  schwach   408 Dec 25 07:36 authorized_keys
-rw-------  1 schwach  schwach  1675 Dec 25 07:33 id_rsa
-rw-r--r--  1 schwach  schwach   409 Dec 25 07:33 id_rsa.pub
-rw-r--r--  1 schwach  schwach   352 Dec 25 07:37 known_hosts

Code:

[schwach@beta ~/.ssh]$ ls -l
total 28
-rw-------  1 schwach  schwach   408 Dec 25 07:38 authorized_keys
-rw-------  1 schwach  schwach  1675 Dec 25 07:35 id_rsa
-rw-r--r--  1 schwach  schwach   409 Dec 25 07:38 id_rsa.pub
-rw-r--r--  1 schwach  schwach   533 Dec 28 09:31 known_hosts

Checking the perms for the home dirs on both boxes, there are no additional ACLs that could be the issue.

Code:

[schwach@alpha /mnt/DSPOOL01/home]$ ls -al
total 15
drwxr-xr-x   3 root     wheel     3 Dec 25 07:32 .
drwxr-xr-x  16 root     wheel    16 Dec 24 02:25 ..
drwxr-x---   4 schwach  schwach   5 Dec 25 07:37 schwach

At this point, I'm stumped. I don't understand why it works, then stops working - any help would be greatly appreciated.

As a side note, other the this silly ssh key challenge, I think this is an excellent project!

- Schwach