Trying to SSH into an Amazon Ec2 instance - permission error

Question

This is probably a stupidly simple question to some :)

I\'ve created a new linux instance on Amazon EC2, and as part of that downloaded the .pem file to allow me to

Answer 1

In addition to the other answers, here is what I did in order for this to work:

• Copy the key to .ssh folder if you still hadn't:

cp key.pem ~/.ssh/key.pem

• Give the proper permissions to the key

chmod 400 ~/.ssh/key.pem

• Start ssh-agent (Thanks to https://stackoverflow.com/a/17848593 )

eval `ssh-agent -s` ssh-add

• Then, add the key

ssh-add ~/.ssh/key.pem

Now you should be able to ssh EC2 (:

Answer 2

What did it for me is editing the default security group to allow for inbound TCP traffic at port 22:

Answer 3

BY default permission are not allowing the pem key. You just have to change the permission:

chmod 400 xyz.pem

and if ubuntu instance then connect using:

ssh -i xyz.pem ubuntu@ec2-youraws.amazonaws.com

Answer 4

In Mac terminal, doing "chmod 400 xyz.pem" did not help me, it kept saying permission denied. For ubuntu users I would suggest

1. ssh-add xyz.pem
2. ssh -i xyz.pem ubuntu@ec2-54-69-172-118.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com (notice the user is ubuntu)

Answer 5

Key file should not be publicly viewable so use permission 400

chmod 400 keyfile.pem

If above command shows permission error use

sudo chmod 400 keyfile.pem

Now ssh into the ec2 machine, if you still face the issue, use ec2-user

ssh -i keyfile.pem ec2-user@ec2-12-34-56-78.compute-1.amazonaws.com

Answer 6

In windows,

• Right click on the pem file. Then select properties.
• Select security tab --> Click on Edit --> Remove all other user except current user
• Go back to security tab again --> Click on Advanced --> Disable inheritance