Using Ruby and net-ssh, how do I authenticate using the key_data parameter with Net::SSH.start?

Question

I\'ve read the net-ssh documentation, and I am still perplexed. I can authenticate manually (using ssh -i ...), and also by placing the key in a file and using the :keys pa

Answer 1

I see this question in pretty old but I am going to throw the answer to you anyway just in case as I had the same issue and I just solved it.

In the following code note that the string containing the RSA key is not indented at all anywhere. The second line of the key does not have any leading space in it. TextMate put this there when I pasted the key in. I removed it and it worked like a charm.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'rubygems'
require 'net/ssh'

HOST = '172.20.0.31'
USER = 'root'

KEYS = [ "-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIEogIBAAKCAQEAqccvUza8FCinI4X8HSiXwIqQN6TGvcNBJnjPqGJxlstq1IfU
kFa3S9eJl+CBkyjfvJ5ggdLN0S2EuGWwc/bdE3LKOWX8F15tFP0=
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----" ]

Net::SSH.start( HOST, USER, :key_data => KEYS, :keys_only => TRUE) do|ssh|
result = ssh.exec!('ls')
puts result
end

Answer 2

I'm adding a little more info that I discovered myself after digging around the library...

Since 2.9.2, if your intention is to use only the key provided in key_data, you must also specify a blank set of keys before loading your key_data, or it will load some default keys.

In my case, one of those identity files it tried to load was passphrase-protected, so it asked me for my passphrase, though my intention was not to use that identify file at all.

Using the example above, in 2.9.2, you can get the same effect by doing something like this:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'rubygems'
require 'net/ssh'

HOST = '172.20.0.31'
USER = 'root'

KEYS = [ "-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIEogIBAAKCAQEAqccvUza8FCinI4X8HSiXwIqQN6TGvcNBJnjPqGJxlstq1IfU
kFa3S9eJl+CBkyjfvJ5ggdLN0S2EuGWwc/bdE3LKOWX8F15tFP0=
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----" ]

Net::SSH.start( HOST, USER, :keys => [], :key_data => KEYS, :keys_only => TRUE) do|ssh|
result = ssh.exec!('ls')
puts result
end