I don't think that's true. You have to screw around with launchctl. The original poster probably has to add the ability for a specific user to ssh to the box in "remote access"

The "Remote Login" checkbox in System Preferences actually does something equivalent to the `systemsetup` command. If you uncheck it, the daemon stops running, and you can then make changes or run it yourself.

This is what I'll do when I get home

You might find that running sshd in a Terminal is probably the best way to get a sense of what's really going on if the logging level isn't high enough by default - things like cipher disagreements would probably be visible on the client, whereas authentication errors are more likely to be logged on the target side. Do come back with how you get on!

So it turns out that I had deleted my shell, which also explains why iTerm and Terminal would instantly die.

Fixed it with `chsh` and now all that good stuff works \o/

Glad to hear it!