Why doesn't my SSH key work for connecting to github?

Question

Note: I\'m not a newb, and I\'ve done this a gazillion times, but for some reason today it decided not to work.

I keep getting the Permission denied (publickey).

Answer 1

I had a similar issue when moving from Windows 7 to Windows 10 using Git for Windows.

I had my SSH keys for a Gitlab of our company running on my old computer and using this ssh command in the Windows cmd or the Git Bash worked fine (with git.my_server.com replaced by the Git server domain) - so my Windows was able to use the key, but Git for Windows was not:

ssh -T git@git.my_server.com

(which displayed: "Welcome to GitLab, @my_username!). However, when trying to clone, push or pull with git, I got the "Permission denied (publickey)" error message.

I initially couldn't find the location/environment of the SSH keys that Git uses, so I tried to copy/paste the ssh keys into this environment by using the Git Bash:

1. Open the Git Bash from the Windows Start Menu (not from a directory). Enter

   pwd

   I later found out that this returns the location of your ssh keys. In my case this returned '/u/', which was a network drive mounted as "U:\" in my Windows account.

2. Type cd .ssh, then dir. This may list your currently existing id files, like id_rsa and id_rsa.pub. I deleted these files since I didn't need them anymore (you might want to skip this if you successfully used other SSH keys on your installation, e.g. for other Git Servers):

   rm id_rsa

   rm id_rsa.pub

3. Create a new id_rsa file (if you have an existing id_rsa file, you can also use another name, like id_rsa_gitlab_my_username or something like that. Add .pub to this name for the public key):

   vi id_rsa and press the 'i' on your keyboard to switch to text insertion mode. Now copy the content of your private key file (I had mine in C:\Users\my_windows_username.ssh\id_rsa and used Notepad++ to copy the complete content, Windows notepad works fine as well). Press Escape on your keyboard to exit text insertion mode, then enter ':' and 'x', then Enter to save the file. Repeat this for the public key file.

4. If you use multiple SSH keys or used another name for the id_rsa file, you should also create a 'config' file or copy the content of your existing configuration file:

   vi config

   (Again, press 'i', insert text, press ':', 'x', then Enter.) My file looks like this (use your server, user and SSH file name):

   #SCC Gitlab
       Host git.my_server.com
       HostName git.my_server.com
       User git
       IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
   

Now my Git for Windows was able to push, pull and clone without problems again.