BernieC: I was surprised that a basic feature like password authentication wouldn't work. So I tried on a local machine at $work. It worked with the $ssh2->auth_password() for me. After some more looking, I printed out $ssh2->auth_list(), and that gave a clue, which sounded familiar to something I'd read recently. It turned out to have been clarified by what salva (the module's author) already told you in Re^4: Can't get $ssh2->check_hostkey to work: shell02.theworld.com requires keyboard-interactive authentication, but you were using password authentication, which is not the same thing: so you were using the wrong authentication type. The results of my experiment, to make it more explicit:

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use Net::SSH2 ':all';
use Config;

my $host = 'REDACTED';
my $username = 'REDACTED';
my $password = 'REDACTED';

print STDERR "__DATA__\n\n__RESULTS__\n";
print STDERR "\$] => $]\n";
print STDERR "$_ => $Config{$_}\n" for qw/archname osname osvers/;

print STDERR "\n\nhost at \$work\n";
my $ssh2 = Net::SSH2->new();
my $rv = $ssh2->connect($host) or $ssh2->die_with_error;              
+                  print STDERR "\tconnect           => $rv\n";
#$rv = $ssh2->check_hostkey(LIBSSH2_HOSTKEY_POLICY_ASK) or $ssh2->die_
+with_error;        print STDERR "\tcheck hostkey    => $rv\n";  # yes
+, I know I should... but not doing this for now; you had trouble, too
+... and I trust this local host
$rv = $ssh2->auth_list($username) or $ssh2->die_with_error;           
+                  print STDERR "\tauth_list         => $rv\n";
$rv = $ssh2->auth_password($username, $password) or $ssh2->die_with_er
+ror;              print STDERR "\tauth_password     => $rv\n";
my $chan = $ssh2->channel() or $ssh2->die_with_error;                 
+                  print STDERR "\tget channel       => $rv\n";
$rv = $chan->exec('ls -l') or $ssh2->die_with_error;                  
+                  print STDERR "\texec ls           => $rv\n";
print STDERR "line read: " . $chan->readline();
$rv = $chan->close() or $ssh2->die_with_error;                        
+                  print STDERR "\tchan close        => $rv\n";
$rv = $ssh2->disconnect() or $ssh2->die_with_error;                   
+                  print STDERR "\tdisconnect           => $rv\n";

print STDERR "\n\nshell02.theworld.com:\n";
$ssh2 = Net::SSH2->new();
$ssh2->connect('shell02.theworld.com') or $ssh2->die_with_error;
$rv = $ssh2->auth_list() or $ssh2->die_with_error;                    
+                 print STDERR "\tauth_list                => $rv\n";
$rv = $ssh2->auth_password_interact($username) or $ssh2->die_with_erro
+r;               print STDERR "\tauth_password_interact   => $rv\n";
    # this wouldn't work on my strawberry perl: "Non-blocking ReadLine
+ is not supported on this architecture"

__DATA__

__RESULTS__
$] => 5.026002
archname => MSWin32-x64-multi-thread
osname => MSWin32
osvers => 10.0.16299.371


host at $work
        connect           => 1
        auth_list         => publickey,gssapi-with-mic,password
        auth_password     => 1
        get channel       => 1
        exec ls           => 1
line read: total 948
        chan close        => 1
        disconnect           => 1


shell02.theworld.com:
        auth_list         => publickey,keyboard-interactive
REDACTED's password? Non-blocking ReadLine is not supported on this ar
+chitecture at C:/usr/local/apps/berrybrew/perls/5.26.2_64_PDL/perl/ve
+ndor/lib/Net/SSH2.pm line 314.
[download]

Notice: my $work host said "publickey,gssapi-with-mic,password" -- ie, it accepts password authentication. But when I checked shell02.theworld.com, it just accepts "publickey,keyboard-interactive". So the valid complaint is "I tried auth_password() even though the host required auth_password_interact(), and it didn't work.".

And, I didn't try very many experiments with auth_password_interact(), but the one I showed above showed that "Non-blocking ReadLine is not supported on this architecture", so it might be a valid complaint to say "My host doesn't accept auth_password(); the host claims to accept auth_password_interact(), but trying that on Strawberry didn't seem to work, and gave the error 'Non-blocking ReadLine is not supported on this architecture'". This would be the response I would give to salva's post in the other thread, to flag salva that there's been a response.

But to claim that "auth_password just didn't work" does not tell the whole, accurate story.

update:: added Re^5: Can't get $ssh2->check_hostkey to work to ask salva about the ReadLine error on strawberry perl

edit 2:: added paragraph breaks to make it more readable