I'm using rsync to backup our server to another running an rsync daemon on our LAN using the command
rsync -av /volume1/ Public/ root#192.168.2.20:/shares/Backup/Public/
It's working great except that it requires a manual password entry, so I'd like to automate it with a key pair. Running ssh-keygen I get the below where I hit return 3 times
ssh-keygen
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/root/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
ssh-copy-id script isn't on our system, so I used the line below to copy the password file to the backup destination server. I checked and it copied correctly
> cat /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh root#192.168.2.20 "cat >> /root/.ssh/authorized_keys"
As a test, I ssh to the destination server to ensure there's no longer a password prompt, but I'm still getting one?
DiskStation> ssh 192.168.2.20
root#192.168.2.20's password:
I'm not strong in unix, so am likely missing something obvious. Suggestions please?
___ Edit ____
Followed up with adding the following settings to sshd_config but still no luck:
RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
Not sure if it matters, but the machine hosting the public key as a WD Sharespace which is a Debian Lenny build.
The correct procedure for passwordless SSH is as follows:
Begin by executing the ssh-keygen command to generate a key
ssh-keygen
Once you have the key, then you can copy it to the remote server. Use this command which makes it easier
ssh-copy-id user#host
The command assumes that you are using port 22 for ssh, if not use, with xxxx being the port number
ssh-copy-id "user#host -p xxxx"
See here for a detailed description of this command
In your case, when you are editing
/etc/ssh/sshd_config
Make sure you modify PasswordAuthentication from
PasswordAuthentication yes
to
PasswordAuthentication no
then restart sshd with
service sshd restart
Make sure the key is in your chain. ssh-add ~path/to/private/key otherwise you need to do ssh -i /path/to/key . Then make sure you're using ssh root#whatever. Then make sure the file is written to the remote node properly. Try copying and pasting rather than your cat and pipe. And lastly, try restarting ssh on the remote and perform those steps again (to permit the permitrootlogin to be active).
By the way, the fact that you are trying to avoid entering passwords and then you added a passphrase for the key, makes this entire process pointless.
I created key pair using puttygen.exe (client is windows 8). On server (Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS), I have put my public key in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. The public key is this:
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEAopfM6RHOgnuc4Aftn3t4k5UIAT3StCAbn/vg/IMbphbXadshC+79sIlRq3P4zGzMjFTP4hKnzu6ehLV5lmj/qorq3SKT+bPO5Qrac3VbIlrGvuBFDDjP82I2Hwg3HzlsFTstqk++KToapaTYZ7jENEYyPl2wnzITJnt//+4U1o6juoXTKgdNE02hHnRZyHOV/bnkZyJJCEwJv5U0eXSThQnhmXtUxGT8U0HQNFiXfqIIVllhWiCnyrhhIaKz/CIJNAd2VmzyJzQtJtTQX8aWSNVrZju6Sv2/RncTNvsACdNgjjh/FH8PQXaep00jlJ3MOdsC8vz6VSPFbh6iKy1oLQ== rsa-key-20131231
So it's correct (one line, no comments, starts with ssh-rsa, etc.)
.ssh dir permission level is 700, authorized_keys file permission is 600. Both directory and file owned by the actual user that I try to log in.
When I try connecting I'm getting 'server refused our key' and server asks for password. That's all. Nothing is logged to /var/log/auth.log when attempting to log in with the key.
I've looked everywhere and all articles and tips mention setting chmod 600 and 700 for the file/directory and formatting the key correctly. I've done all this still getting 'refused our key' error and I'm out of ideas.
OK, there was a small typo in my key. Apparently when pasting to file the first letter was cut off and it started with sh-rsa instead of ssh-rsa.
nrathathaus - your answer was very helpful, thanks a lot, this answer is credited to you :) I did like you said and set this in sshd_conf:
LogLevel DEBUG3
By looking at the logs I realized that sshd reads the key correctly but rejects it because of the incorrect identifier.
Adding a few thoughts as other answers helped, but were not exact fit.
First of all, as mentioned in accepted answer, edit
/etc/ssh/sshd_config
and set log level:
LogLevel DEBUG3
Then restart sshd on the server to have it use the changed log level, e.g.:
sudo service ssh restart
Then try to authenticate, and when it fails, look for log file:
/var/log/secure
It will have errors you are looking for.
In my case I had to change the permissions of /home/user from 0755 to 0700 as well.
In my case, is a permission problem.
I changed the log level to DEBUG3, and in /var/log/secure I see this line:
Authentication refused: bad ownership or modes for directory
Googled and I found this post:
https://www.daveperrett.com/articles/2010/09/14/ssh-authentication-refused/
chmod g-w /home/$USER
chmod 700 /home/$USER/.ssh
chmod 600 /home/$USER/.ssh/authorized_keys
Basically, it tells me to:
get rid of group w permission of your user home dir
change permission to 700 of the .ssh dir
change permission to 600 of the authorized_keys file.
And that works.
Another thing is that even I enabled root login, I cannot get root to work. Better use another user.
Running Windows 8.1 I ran into the server refused our key problem.
Following the guide: https://winscp.net/eng/docs/guide_windows_openssh_server
It was easy to make a connection using the Windows login username and password. However, authenticating with the username in combination with a private key, the response was server refused our key.
Getting it to work with a public key came down to the permissions on the file:
C:\ProgramData\ssh\administrators_authorized_keys
This is a helpful page: https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/wiki/Troubleshooting-Steps
Stop the two OpenSSH services, then open a command prompt with admin permissions. Then run:
C:\OpenSSH-Win32>c:\OpenSSH-Win32\sshd.exe -ddd
Note: specify the full path to the exe otherwise sshd complains.
This creates a one-time use connection listener. The -ddd is verbose level 3.
After making a connection, scanning the logs revealed:
debug1: trying public key file __PROGRAMDATA__/ssh/administrators_authorized_keys
debug3: Failed to open file:C:/ProgramData/ssh/administrators_authorized_keys error:2
debug1: Could not open authorized keys '__PROGRAMDATA__/ssh/administrators_authorized_keys':
No such file or directory
Had to create the file: C:\ProgramData\ssh\administrators_authorized_keys
And copy the public key text into it, e.g: ssh-rsa AAAA................MmpfXUCj rsa-key-20190505
And then save the file. I saved the file as UTF-8 with the BOM. Didn't test ANSI.
Then running the one-time command line again, in the logs showed:
debug1: trying public key file __PROGRAMDATA__/ssh/administrators_authorized_keys
debug3: Bad permissions. Try removing permissions for user: S-1-5-11 on file C:/ProgramData/ssh/administrators_authorized_keys.
Authentication refused.
S-1-5-11 is the name given to the System.
To fix the Bad permissions, right click on the administrators_authorized_keys file, goto the Security Tab , click the Advanced button and remove inherited permissions.
Then delete all Group or user names: except for the Windows login username, e.g: YourMachineName\username
The permissions for that username should be Read Allow, Write Deny everything else is unchecked. The owner of the file should also be YourMachineName\username
This fixed the problem.
Other Useful links:
Download OpenSSH-Win32.zip from: https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/releases
C# example of how to use the WinSCPnet.dll to make a connection to the OpenSSH server: https://winscp.net/eng/docs/library#csharp
Here is the code snippet to make a connection using the WinSCPnet.dll:
static void WinSCPTest() {
SessionOptions ops = new SessionOptions {
Protocol = Protocol.Sftp,
PortNumber = 22,
HostName = "192.168.1.188",
UserName = "user123",
//Password = "Password1",
SshHostKeyFingerprint = #"ssh-rsa 2048 qu0f........................ddowUUXA="
};
ops.SshPrivateKeyPath = #"C:\temp\rsa-key-20190505.ppk";
using (Session session = new Session()) {
session.Open(ops);
MessageBox.Show("success");
}
}
Replace SshHostKeyFingerprint and SshPrivateKeyPath with your own values.
Edit: added screenshot of administrators_authorized_keys file permissions:
When OpenSSH SSH Server is running as a Service, then only System should have permission. However, if running sshd.exe from the command prompt, then the current user should be the only one listed (read allow, write deny).
The simple solution i found was to move the authorized_keys file away from the hidden .ssh directory and put it in the system ssh directory:
/etc/ssh/keys/authorized_keys
As soon as I did this it worked with no problems.
having same issue in windows server 2008 r2 and explored a lot to solve, finally did that by following:
open C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenSSH\etc\sshd_config with textpad or any other text editor
remove comment from following lines, after removing they should look like following:
RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys
save it and try to login with private key now.
have fun.
I'm adding this answer to help anyone, like me, who spent hours scouring the internet without success.
YOUR HOME FOLDER MIGHT BE ENCRYPTED.
Or for that matter any folder in which your "authorized_keys" file is nested. Man, that would have saved me a lot of time. To check, go perform
ls -A
on the directory whose encryption status you would like to determine. If the folder contains a folder named ".encryptfs" the answer is, yes, that folder is encrypted. This will impede your ability to access the "authorized_keys" file containing the public ssh key needed for verification.
To fix this, place the "authorized_key" file in a directory tree that contains no encryption.
After adding key, login as ec2-user if you are using an Amazon Linux machine
If its ubuntu machine then use ubuntu
Thanks to nrathaus and /var/log/auth.log investigation on debug level comes the following.
Another reason is that your home directory may have permissions different than 755.
In my case it was caused by (/etc/ssh/sshd_config):
PermitRootLogin no
Changed to yes, restarted the service and got in normally.
I have solved this problem,puttygen is a third-party software, ssh key which generated by it didn't be used directly, so you must make some changes.
For example, it look like this
---- BEGIN SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----
Comment: "rsa-key-20170502"
AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEAr4Ffd3LD1pa7KVSBDU+lq0M7vNvLp6TewkP7
*******C4eq1cdJACBPyjqUCoz00r+LqkGA6sIFGooeVuUXTOxbYULuNQ==
---- END SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----
I omit some of the alphabets in the middle, replaced by *, if not, StackOverflow told me that the code format is wrong, do not let me post。
this is my ssh key generated by puttygen, you must change to this
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEAr4Ffd3LD1pa7KVSBDU+lq0M7vNvLp6TewkP7wfvKGWWR7wxA8GEXJsM01FQw5hYWbNF0CDI7nCMXDUEDOzO1xKtNoaidlLA0qGl67bHaF5t+0mE+dZBGqK7jG9L8/KU/b66/tuZnqFqBjLkT+lS8MDo1okJOScuLSilk9oT5ZiqxsD24sdEcUE62S8Qwu7roVEAWU3hHNpnMK+1szlPBCVpbjcQTdiv1MjsOHJXY2PWx6DAIBii+/N+IdGzoFdhq+Yo/RGWdr1Zw/LSwqKDq1SmrpToW9uWVdAxeC4eq1cdJACBPyjqUCoz00r+LqkGA6sIFGooeVuUXTOxbYULuNQ== yourname#hostname
In my case, I have deleted some comments, such as
---- BEGIN SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----
Comment: "rsa-key-20170502"
---- END SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----
and add ssh-rsa at the beginning,
add yourname#hostname at the last.
note: not delete== in the last and you must change "yourname" and "hostname" for you, In my case, is uaskh#mycomputer,yourname is that you want to log in your vps .when all these things have done,you could to upload public-key to uaskh's home~/.ssh/authorized_keys by cat public-key >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys then sudo chmod 700 ~/.ssh sudo chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys then you must to modify /etc/ssh/sshd_config, RSAAuthentication yes PubkeyAuthentication yes AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys my operating system is CentOS 7,This is my first time to anwser question,I will try my efforts to do ,Thank you!
I encountered this problem today and my issue was that when copying the public key from file, new line characters are included as well. You can use ":set list" in vim to see all the hidden new lines and make sure to delete all the new lines except for the last one. Also, my key was missing "ssh-rsa " in the beginning. Make sure you have that as well.
The equivilent of an SSH command:
ssh -i <path_to_pem_file> ec2-user#calendar.com
In Windows, first use PuTTYGen to convert the pem file to a ppk file.
Open PuTTYGen
File/Load the private pem key (or an OpenSSH key)
In the Open FileDialog, use the drop down to select "All files" (it only shows ppk file formats not pem, also OpenSSH key files that can be converted like pem files don't have a file extension)
File/Save private key (*.ppk)
The same settings in Putty as the SSH command:
Open Putty
Session/Hostname: calendar.com
Connection/Data/Auto-login username: ec2-user
Connection/SSH/Auth/PrivateKeyFile Path: the file path to the PPK file
OpenSSH disable the ssh-rsa signature scheme by default in the next
release.
In the SSH protocol, the "ssh-rsa" signature scheme uses the SHA-1
hash algorithm in conjunction with the RSA public key algorithm. It is
now possible1 to perform chosen-prefix attacks against the SHA-1
algorithm for less than USD$50K.
Source
So, update the key.
For those receiving this error from Windows Server, I received this same error and it was a user account issue. With many organizations, group policy for Administrators may not allow setting up SSH Server and connections. With that type of setup, this must be done from Local Admin account. Might be worth looking into if you have confirmed there are not any typos in the public key.
In my case, I had to disable SELinux on Centos6.6 to get it working :)
Edit /etc/selinux/config and set the following and then reboot the host.
selinux=disabled
BTW...forgot to mention that I had to set the LogLevel=DEBUG3 to identify the issue.
I had the same error on solaris but found in /var/adm/splunk-auth.log the following:
sshd: [auth.debug] debug1: PAM conv function returns PAM_SUCCESS
sshd: [auth.notice] Excessive (3) login failures for weblogic: locking account.
sshd: [auth.debug] ldap pam_sm_authenticate(sshd-kbdint weblogic), flags = 1
sshd: [auth.info] Keyboard-interactive (PAM) userauth failed[9] while authenticating: Authentication failed
In /etc/shadow the account was locked:
weblogic:*LK*UP:16447::::::3
Removed the "*LK*" part:
weblogic:UP:16447::::::3
and I could use ssh with authorized_keys as usual.
I have this issue where sshd only reads from authorized_keys2.
Copying or renaming the file fixed the problem for me.
cd ~/.ssh
sudo cat authorized_keys >> authorized_keys2
P.S. I'm using Putty from Windows and used PuTTyKeygen for key pair generation.
I was facing similar issue when trying to logon through Mobaxterm. The private key was generated through puttygen. Regenerating the key helped in my case.
As my experience, I suggest you should generate keys from putty, should not generate from linux side. Because the key will be old PEM format. Anyway, just my suggestion. I did as steps below and worked fine with me and with my team.
Generate a key pair with PuTTYGen.exe on your local (type: RSA, length: 2048 bits).
Save private/public key as "id_rsa.ppk/id_rsa.pub" files on your local.
Create "authorized_keys" file on your local, then enter the public key in "id_rsa.pub" to "authorized_keys".
Remember content has to begin with "ssh-rsa" and one line only.
Use WinScp (or putty command) to copy "authorized_keys & id_rsa.pub" from your local to your linux-user-home "/home/$USER/.ssh/".
Run these commands:
chmod 700 .ssh
chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys
chown $USER:$USER .ssh -R
Test your connect setting by load the private key "id_rsa.ppk" in the PuTTY.exe profile, then click open (put your passphrase if have).
check your key, this should be a rsa (id_rsa.pub) key today and no longer a dss (id_dsa.pub) key, use puttygen 0.70 and choose RSA on type of key to generate, replace the public key on host ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
Oh my God I spent days trying to fix this. So here is what worked for me. I went back to the root fold like this:
cd /root/
mkdir .ssh
cd .ssh
chmod 700 .ssh
nano -w authorized_keys
service ssh restart
So I used root to logging via Putty and it worked. so try to do the same with the user you want to use in putty.
In the case of mine it was a wrong user:group attribution. I solved setting the right user and group:
sudo chown [user]:[group] -R /home/[user]
This helps to me:
# /etc/ssh/sshd_config
PubkeyAuthentication yes
PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes=+ssh-rsa
# temporarily added:
LogLevel DEBUG3
# gentoo
# tail -n 50 /var/log/messages
and restart sshd
/etc/init.d/sshd restart
If you run Putty in a version before 0.75, then updating Putty should solve the problem.
Newer version of openSSH (as in Ubuntu 22.04) have deprecated the use of the SHA1 hashing algorithm during the login, but Putty used SHA1 until version 0.74.
If sshd log file on the server shows
$ sudo grep 'sshd' /var/log/auth.log
sshd[113232]: userauth_pubkey: key type ssh-rsa not in PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms [preauth]
then this in fact causing the error, and should be gone after Putty has been updated.
I'm using a PUTTYgen file with psftp, and I encountered this problem on my Windows Server when we were required to create new keys for a client. The private_key_name.ppk file and the open_ssh.txt file must be in the same directory for the connection to work.
In my case home on nfs was 777, needed to be 750. That fixed the issue.
When using Cpanel you can check if the key is authorized in
SSH Access >> Public keys >> Manage >> Authorize or Deauthorize.
if you get this error in /var/log/secure
error: key_read: key_from_blob AA
AAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEAoo3PFwX04NFG+rKz93l7em1BsUBzjHPMsswD
it means your key is having space, if you generated key through puttgen when you view .ppk file, it will look like this:
AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEAoo3PFwX04NFG+rKz93l7em1BsUBzjHPMsswD
al74MLaJyhQD0pE23NS1izahbo1sJGnSJu2VJ//zxidSsba6xa6OvmeiKTwCz0E5
GMefdGVdpdbTlv99qjBl1+Nw1tDnHIC0+v9XmeZERQfCds9Kp1UivfReoYImntBC
gLtNyqRYrSu8csJCt7E1oY8QK6WP1vfYgAQ2taGyS9+g7FHyyf5VY2vH3oWzzbqz
xjsSLAv3zEQSm1LzSw9Pvc8iwasFyUMBOPj31CKQYTXyX8KpJTr0Zb7oqMauBE5L
VwxZhlcJHbj0FsMbF/+GRjvgexymCi3bHmwGQ6FEADNd0RkhdQ==
and when you try to paste it you will get an error in reading key, so try to edit key and make it one line and try it
this should look like something
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEAoo3PFwX04NFG+rKz93l7em1BsUBzjHPMsswDal74MLaJyhQD0pE23NS1izahbo1sJGnSJu2VJ//zxidSsba6xa6OvmeiKTwCz0E5GMefdGVdpdbTlv99qjBl1+Nw1tDnHIC0+v9XmeZERQfCds9Kp1UivfReoYImntBCgLtNyqRYrSu8csJCt7E1oY8QK6WP1vfYgAQ2taGyS9+g7FHyyf5VY2vH3oWzzbqzxjsSLAv3zEQSm1LzSw9Pvc8iwasFyUMBOPj31CKQYTXyX8KpJTr0Zb7oqMauBE5LVwxZhlcJHbj0FsMbF/+GRjvgexymCi3bHmwGQ6FEADNd0RkhdQ== username#domainname
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I want to use multiple private keys to connect to different servers or different portions of the same server (my uses are system administration of server, administration of Git, and normal Git usage within the same server). I tried simply stacking the keys in the id_rsa files to no avail.
Apparently a straightforward way to do this is to use the command
ssh -i <key location> login#server.example.com
That is quite cumbersome.
Any suggestions as to how to go about doing this a bit easier?
From my .ssh/config:
Host myshortname realname.example.com
HostName realname.example.com
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/realname_rsa # private key for realname
User remoteusername
Host myother realname2.example.org
HostName realname2.example.org
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/realname2_rsa # different private key for realname2
User remoteusername
Then you can use the following to connect:
ssh myshortname
ssh myother
And so on.
You can instruct ssh to try multiple keys in succession when connecting. Here's how:
$ cat ~/.ssh/config
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_old
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
# ... and so on
$ ssh server.example.com -v
....
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /home/example/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: read PEM private key done: type RSA
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /home/example/.ssh/id_rsa_old
debug1: read PEM private key done: type RSA
....
[server ~]$
This way you don't have to specify what key works with which server. It'll just use the first working key.
Also you would only enter a passphrase if a given server is willing to accept the key. As seen above ssh didn't try to ask for a password for .ssh/id_rsa even if it had one.
Surely it doesn't outbeat a per-server configuration as in other answers, but at least you won't have to add a configuration for all and every server you connect to!
The answer from Randal Schwartz almost helped me all the way.
I have a different username on the server, so I had to add the User keyword to my file:
Host friendly-name
HostName long.and.cumbersome.server.name
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/private_ssh_file
User username-on-remote-machine
Now you can connect using the friendly-name:
ssh friendly-name
More keywords can be found on the OpenSSH man page. NOTE: Some of the keywords listed might already be present in your /etc/ssh/ssh_config file.
The previous answers have properly explained the way to create a configuration file to manage multiple ssh keys. I think, the important thing that also needs to be explained is the replacement of a host name with an alias name while cloning the repository.
Suppose, your company's GitHub account's username is abc1234.
And suppose your personal GitHub account's username is jack1234
And, suppose you have created two RSA keys, namely id_rsa_company and id_rsa_personal. So, your configuration file will look like below:
# Company account
Host company
HostName github.com
PreferredAuthentications publickey
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_company
# Personal account
Host personal
HostName github.com
PreferredAuthentications publickey
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_personal
Now, when you are cloning the repository (named demo) from the company's GitHub account, the repository URL will be something like:
Repo URL: git#github.com:abc1234/demo.git
Now, while doing git clone, you should modify the above repository URL as:
git#company:abc1234/demo.git
Notice how github.com is now replaced with the alias "company" as we have defined in the configuration file.
Similary, you have to modify the clone URL of the repository in the personal account depending upon the alias provided in the configuration file.
ssh-add ~/.ssh/xxx_id_rsa
Make sure you test it before adding with:
ssh -i ~/.ssh/xxx_id_rsa username#example.com
If you have any problems with errors sometimes changing the security of the file helps:
chmod 0600 ~/.ssh/xxx_id_rsa
Generate an SSH key:
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -C <email1#example.com>
Generate another SSH key:
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/accountB -C <email2#example.com>
Now, two public keys (id_rsa.pub, accountB.pub) should be exists in the ~/.ssh/ directory.
$ ls -l ~/.ssh # see the files of '~/.ssh/' directory
Create configuration file ~/.ssh/config with the following contents:
$ nano ~/.ssh/config
Host bitbucket.org
User git
Hostname bitbucket.org
PreferredAuthentications publickey
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Host bitbucket-accountB
User git
Hostname bitbucket.org
PreferredAuthentications publickey
IdentitiesOnly yes
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/accountB
Clone from default account.
$ git clone git#bitbucket.org:username/project.git
Clone from the accountB account.
$ git clone git#bitbucket-accountB:username/project.git
Note: Because of the User git directive, you can omit the git# portion of the repo URL, shortening your clone command like so:
$ git clone bitbucket-accountB:username/project.git
This is the only purpose of that directive. If you don't need it (e.g. you always copy-paste the git clone command from the website), you can leave it out of the config.
See More Here
I would agree with Tuomas about using ssh-agent. I also wanted to add a second private key for work and this tutorial worked like a charm for me.
Steps are as below:
$ ssh-agent bash
$ ssh-add /path.to/private/key e.g ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Verify by $ ssh-add -l
Test it with $ssh -v <host url> e.g ssh -v git#assembla.com
Now, with the recent version of Git, we can specify sshCommand in the repository-specific Git configuration file:
[core]
repositoryformatversion = 0
filemode = true
bare = false
logallrefupdates = true
sshCommand = ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_user
[remote "origin"]
url = git#bitbucket.org:user/repo.git
fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
For me on MacOs, the only working solution was to simply add this in file ~/.ssh/config:
Host *
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/your_ssh_key
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/your_ssh_key2
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/your_ssh_key3
AddKeysToAgent yes
your_ssh_key is without any extension. Don't use .pub.
I had run into this issue a while back, when I had two Bitbucket accounts and wanted to had to store separate SSH keys for both. This is what worked for me.
I created two separate ssh configurations as follows.
Host personal.bitbucket.org
HostName bitbucket.org
User git
IdentityFile /Users/username/.ssh/personal
Host work.bitbucket.org
HostName bitbucket.org
User git
IdentityFile /Users/username/.ssh/work
Now when I had to clone a repository from my work account - the command was as follows.
git clone git#bitbucket.org:teamname/project.git
I had to modify this command to:
git clone git#**work**.bitbucket.org:teamname/project.git
Similarly the clone command from my personal account had to be modified to
git clone git#personal.bitbucket.org:name/personalproject.git
Refer this link for more information.
Use ssh-agent for your keys.
Here is the solution that I used inspired from the answer of sajib-khan. The default configuration is not set; it's my personal account on GitLab and the other specified is my company account. Here is what I did:
Generate the SSH key
ssh-keygen -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/company -C "name.surname#company.com"
Edit the SSH configuration
nano ~/.ssh/config
Host company.gitlab.com
HostName gitlab.com
PreferredAuthentications publickey
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/company
Delete the cached SSH key(s)
ssh-add -D
Test it!
ssh -T git#company.gitlab.com
Welcome to GitLab, #hugo.sohm!
ssh -T git#gitlab.com
Welcome to GitLab, #HugoSohm!
Use it!
Company account
git clone git#company.gitlab.com:group/project.git
Personal/default account
git clone git#gitlab.com:username/project.git
Here is the source that I used.
For those who are working with aws I would highly recommend working with EC2 Instance Connect.
Amazon EC2 Instance Connect provides a simple and secure way to connect to your instances using Secure Shell (SSH).
With EC2 Instance Connect, you use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies and principles to control SSH access to your instances, removing the need to share and manage SSH keys.
After installing the relevant packages (pip install ec2instanceconnectcli or cloning the repo directly) you can connect very easy to multiple EC2 instances by just changing the instance id:
What is happening behind the scenes?
When you connect to an instance using EC2 Instance Connect, the Instance Connect API pushes a one-time-use SSH public key to the instance metadata where it remains for 60 seconds. An IAM policy attached to your IAM user authorizes your IAM user to push the public key to the instance metadata.
The SSH daemon uses AuthorizedKeysCommand and AuthorizedKeysCommandUser, which are configured when Instance Connect is installed, to look up the public key from the instance metadata for authentication, and connects you to the instance.
(*) Amazon Linux 2 2.0.20190618 or later and Ubuntu 20.04 or later comes preconfigured with EC2 Instance Connect.
For other supported Linux distributions, you must set up Instance Connect for every instance that will support using Instance Connect. This is a one-time requirement for each instance.
Links:
Set up EC2 Instance Connect
Connect using EC2 Instance Connect
Securing your bastion hosts with Amazon EC2 Instance Connect
You can create a configuration file named config in your ~/.ssh folder. It can contain:
Host aws
HostName *yourip*
User *youruser*
IdentityFile *idFile*
This will allow you to connect to machines like this
ssh aws
As mentioned on a Atlassian blog page,
generate a config file within the .ssh folder, including the following text:
#user1 account
Host bitbucket.org-user1
HostName bitbucket.org
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/user1
IdentitiesOnly yes
#user2 account
Host bitbucket.org-user2
HostName bitbucket.org
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/user2
IdentitiesOnly yes
Then you can simply checkout with the suffix domain and within the projects you can configure the author names, etc. locally.
Multiple key pairs on GitHub
1.0 SSH configuration file
1.1 Create ~/.ssh/config
1.2 chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config (must)
1.3 Input the following into the file:
Host pizza
HostName github.com
PreferredAuthentications publickey # optional
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/privatekey1
Case A: Fresh new Git clone
Use this command to Git clone:
$ git clone git#pizza:yourgitusername/pizzahut_repo.git
Note: If you want to change the host name “pizza” of .ssh/config in the future, go into the Git cloned folder, edit .git/config file URL line (see case B)
Case B: Already have Git clone folder
2.1 Go to the cloned folder, and then go into the .git folder
2.2 Edit configuration file
2.3 Update the URL from *old to new:
(Old) URL = git#github.com:yourgitusername/pizzahut_repo.git
(New) URL = git#pizza:yourgitusername/pizzahut_repo.git
IMPORTANT: You must start ssh-agent
You must start ssh-agent (if it is not running already) before using ssh-add as follows:
eval `ssh-agent -s` # start the agent
ssh-add id_rsa_2 # Where id_rsa_2 is your new private key file
Note that the eval command starts the agent on Git Bash on Windows. Other environments may use a variant to start the SSH agent.
On Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) there is nothing to do.
After having created an second SSH key successfully the system will try to find a matching SSH key for each connection.
Just to be clear you can create a new key with these commands:
# Generate key make sure you give it a new name (id_rsa_server2)
ssh-keygen
# Make sure ssh agent is running
eval `ssh-agent`
# Add the new key
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa_server2
# Get the public key to add it to a remote system for authentication
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa_server2.pub
I love the approach to set the following in file ~/.ssh/config:
# Configuration for GitHub to support multiple GitHub keys
Host github.com
HostName github.com
User git
# UseKeychain adds each keys passphrase to the keychain so you
# don't have to enter the passphrase each time.
UseKeychain yes
# AddKeysToAgent would add the key to the agent whenever it is
# used, which might lead to debugging confusion since then
# sometimes the one repository works and sometimes the
# other depending on which key is used first.
# AddKeysToAgent yes
# I only use my private id file so all private
# repositories don't need the environment variable
# `GIT_SSH_COMMAND="ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa"` to be set.
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Then in your repository you can create a .env file which contains the ssh command to be used:
GIT_SSH_COMMAND="ssh -i ~/.ssh/your_ssh_key"
If you then use e.g. dotenv the environment environment variable is exported automatically and whoop whoop, you can specify the key you want per project/directory. The passphrase is asked for only once since it is added to the keychain.
This solution works perfectly with Git and is designed to work on a Mac (due to UseKeychain).
On CentOS 6.5 running OpenSSH_5.3p1 and OpenSSL 1.0.1e-fips, I solved the problem by renaming my key files so that none of them had the default name.
My .ssh directory contains id_rsa_foo and id_rsa_bar, but no id_rsa, etc.
You can try this sshmulti npm package for maintaining multiple SSH keys.
How can I convince that id_dsa is not stored in ~/.ssh when connecting to one particular host.
The obvious question is why. The answer is this key is more sensitive and needs to be password protected while the other is used for automation.
While this is not a programming problem, I would not be surprised to learn this requires a programming solution.
Theres a handy trick you can use to make it really easy, oddly, I just discussed this 30 minutes ago with a friend.
~/.ssh/config
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/ident/%r#%h
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_dsa
This makes it really easy to use a fallback pattern, as the options are run through top to bottom.
Then to specify a specific key for "Bob#someHost" you just have to create the file
~/.ssh/ident/Bob#someHost
And it will try that first when logging into that host.
If the file cannot be found, or the key is rejected, it will try the next one, in this case,
~/.ssh/id_rsa
The benefit of this technique is you don't have to add a new entry every time you add another host, all you have to do is create the keyfile in the right place and it does the rest automatically.
In your .ssh/config, set something like:
Host somehost
IdentityFile /path/to/extra_secret_key
I have one host that has IdentityFile set to ~/.ssh/iddsa_aux, but the parameter should accept any path name.
From the ssh man page:
-i identity_file
Selects a file from which the identity (private key) for RSA or
DSA authentication is read. The default is ~/.ssh/identity for
protocol version 1, and ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_dsa for pro-
tocol version 2. Identity files may also be specified on a per-
host basis in the configuration file. It is possible to have
multiple -i options (and multiple identities specified in config-
uration files).