Unable to setup a slave using SSH

[Eric Wood]

I'm trying to set up a slave using SSH from a windows 7 server to a linux server.  I get the following error:

 ERROR: Unexpected error in launching a slave. This is probably a bug in Jenkins.

java.lang.IllegalStateException: Connection is not established!
at com.trilead.ssh2.Connection.getRemainingAuthMethods(Connection.java:1030)
at com.cloudbees.jenkins.plugins.sshcredentials.impl.TrileadSSHPasswordAuthenticator.canAuthenticate(TrileadSSHPasswordAuthenticator.java:82)
at com.cloudbees.jenkins.plugins.sshcredentials.SSHAuthenticator.newInstance(SSHAuthenticator.java:207)
at com.cloudbees.jenkins.plugins.sshcredentials.SSHAuthenticator.newInstance(SSHAuthenticator.java:169)
at hudson.plugins.sshslaves.SSHLauncher.openConnection(SSHLauncher.java:1173)
at hudson.plugins.sshslaves.SSHLauncher$2.call(SSHLauncher.java:701)
at hudson.plugins.sshslaves.SSHLauncher$2.call(SSHLauncher.java:696)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[01/07/15 16:51:10] Launch failed - cleaning up connection
[01/07/15 16:51:10] [SSH] Connection closed.

Any idea of what's the issue here?

I see that there is an "in-progress" jira ticket for this issue.  Is there another way of performing this task?