I am trying to clone a repo from a project on my Team Foundation Server domain. I have created an SSH key under my profile security. However after accepting the repo's key I am still requested to sign in with a password and the authentication fails:
git clone ssh://mydomain#mydomain.visualstudio.com:22/Project/_git/project-repo
Cloning into 'project-repo'...
mydomain#mydomain.visualstudio.com's password:
Permission denied, please try again.
mydomain#mydomain.visualstudio.com's password:
Permission denied, please try again.
mydomain#mydomain.visualstudio.com's password:
Permission denied (password,publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.
Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.
I have tried both my visualstudio.com password and SHH key password none of which work.But Why is it asking me for a password?
The prerequisite to use ssh for VSTS as below:
Generate ssh key. In git bash, use ssh-kengen in git bash -> select path to save the key -> enter passphrase (if you don’t want passphrase, press enter direcly).
Add the content of .ssh/id_rsa.pub file in KeyData in VSTS SSH public keys (profile -> security).
For your situation, it seems the conent of .ssh/id_rsa.pub is not same with VSTS SSH public keys. So you'd better do step1 and setp2 above and ten clone again with ssh protocol.
The way I resolved this was by deleting and recreating my id_rsa.pub without a password.
The default authentication mode when using SSH is the private key. Whenever that fails for some reason, the ssh-agent falls back to username and password based authentication.
There are several reasons why the default key based authentication might have failed. Following are the most common cases :
a) The ssh-agent cannot find the default private key file which is id_rsa, and no other key path is specified explicitly.
b) The public key stored in the server is incorrect.
c) The path you're trying to clone is incorrect.
In any case, to troubleshoot the issue first of all execute the git clone command with verbose logging with the command :
GIT_TRACE=1 GIT_SSH_COMMAND="ssh -vvv" git clone ssh://pathToYourRepo
You can go through each step in the log to get an intuition of what the issue might be.
Troubleshooting in case of (a)
Make sure you have the default key name id_rsa in the .ssh directory. You might have specified some different keyname when generating the key with ssh-keygen command or maybe there isn't any key at all).
In case you want to specify a different key for authentication, use the following command :
ssh-agent bash -c 'ssh-add ~/.ssh/anotherKey; git clone ssh://pathToYourRepo'
Troubleshooting in case of (b)
Make sure there aren't extra white spaces when storing the public key in the server.
Troubleshooting in case of (c)
Make sure you aren't trying to clone with the https version of the repository path.
In SourceTree I'm using OpenSSH as authentication and created + added my SSH keys (on Windows) like this:
ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "my#email.com"
(and entered filename, password etc)
Added the key to the SSH agent:
eval "$(ssh-agent)"
ssh-add id_rsa
Added the SSH key to GitLab using
cat id_rsa.pub to print my public key
Added the public key to SourceTree by "Tools > Add SSH key" followed by the password ("Tools > options > SSH client configuration" I've selected OpenSSH).
After these steps I'm able to push and pull code.
However, each time I restart SourceTree a terminal pops-up and I have to re-enter my password again*. How can I make SourceTree / the SSH agent remember this password?
ps. my keys are saved in a directory like /d/MyName/Gitlab/ instead of ~/.ssh/ but that shouldn't be a problem, right?
EDIT:
*The message shown in the terminal:
SourceTree is loading your SSH key into the agent for authentication Please enter your passphrase if prompted to do so Enter passphrase for D:\MyName\GitLab\.ssh\id_rsa:
EDIT2:
This solution didn't solve my problem either:
You can use the Windows OpenSSH ssh-agent to manage your keys.
The problem is that Sourcetree on windows wants to start its own instance of the ssh-agent instead of using the already running service. Even if you can get that to work it will still prompt for your key passphrase on startup because Sourcetree's ssh-agent process doesn't save your keys to the the Windows keychain.
There are heaps of instructions on how to use Pageant as your ssh agent, but that is not why you're here. You're here because you want to use the OpenSSH agent, with OpenSSH formatted keys, with passphrases but without being prompted for said passphrase all over the place.
The trick is to proxy all requests to Pageant through to your OpenSSH agent.
Install OpenSSH.
Start the ssh-agent service and set to automatic.
Add your private keys to the agent with
ssh-add <key_file>
Add your public keys to the hosts you want to authenticate with.
Test that you can authenticate via ssh:
ssh -T git#github.com
Your private keys will now be loaded when you log in to your Windows account and you won't have to provide passphrases ever again.
To allow programs and libraries such as Sourcetree, WinSCP and Fabric that normally use Pageant to instead have keys provided by the ssh-agent there is an awesome program https://github.com/ndbeals/winssh-pageant
Follow instructions to install winssh-pageant, schedule it as a task to start on windows startup.
Now all calls to Pageant's NamedPipe will be proxied to the OpenSSH agent.
The last step to get SourceTree working with OpenSSH is a bit counter-intuitive.
Go to Tools | Options | General and set the SSH Client to PuTTY/Plink and uncheck the "Automatically start SSH agent when Sourcetree opens".
I solved this issue following these steps:
Find the path to Pageant (in my case was in C:\Users\{my-user}\AppData\Local\SourceTree\app-3.3.8\tools\putty\pageant.exe)
Do Window key + R or type run in Windows bar
In the text box put shell:startup
Make a shortcut of your pageant and paste it in the window that just opened
Right click on the shortcut and click on Properties
In Shortcut tab, in target put your-sourcetree-pageant-path\pageant.exe id_rsa.ppk
In Start in put C:\Users\{my-user}\.ssh and click ok
Note that your id_rsa.ppk must be inside C:\Users\{my-user}\.ssh directory
If for some reason your id_rsa.ppk is protected by a passphrase and you are sure you won't have security issues. Just remove the passphrase.
To remove the id_rsa.ppk's passphrase, follow these steps
Open PuttyGen
Go to Conversions => Import key
Remove the passphrase
Save the private key & public key
Replace the protected id_rsa.ppk with the unprotected id_rsa.ppk
Hope that helped!
You manually start your agent and set environment variables in order for commands to find it.
Whenever you start your a command (like SourceTree) without those environment variables set, that command is not able to access the agent and therefore asks for your password.
Making your agent start on system startup should solve things.
If ssh cannot reach the agent it will also look into ~/.ssh/ therefor if you place you keys there it should work, too. (Have a look at man ssh.)
After did below test, the password never asked for me.
To test whether your SSH key was added correctly, run the following command in your terminal (replacing gitlab.com with your GitLab's instance domain):
ssh -T git#gitlab.com
The first time you connect to GitLab via SSH, you should verify the authenticity of the GitLab host that you're connecting to. For example, when connecting to GitLab.com, answer yes to add GitLab.com to the list of trusted hosts:
The authenticity of host 'gitlab.com (35.231.145.151)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:HbW3g8zUjNSksFbqTiUWPWg2Bq1x8xdGUrliXFzSnUw.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'gitlab.com' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
NOTE: Note: For GitLab.com, consult the SSH host keys fingerprints, section to make sure you're connecting to the correct server. For example, you can see the ECDSA key fingerprint shown above in the linked section.
Once added to the list of known hosts, you should validate the authenticity of GitLab's host again. Run the above command once more, and you should only receive a Welcome to GitLab, #username! message.
If the welcome message doesn't appear, you can troubleshoot the problem by running ssh in verbose mode with the following command:
ssh -Tvvv git#gitlab.com
I installed cwRsync 5.3.0 on Windows 8, and I want to set up password-less SSH. I ran ssh-keygen to create the keys, and copied the public key to the remote box. But when I try to SSH, I get this:
C:\>ssh myuser#myhost
###########################################################
# WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE! #
###########################################################
Permissions 0660 for '/cygdrive/c/Users/myuser/.ssh/id_dsa' are too open.
It is required that your private key files are NOT accessible by others.
This private key will be ignored.
bad permissions: ignore key: /cygdrive/c/Users/myuser/.ssh/id_dsa
How can I change the file's permissions, so cwRsync won't see it as being group-readable? I tried removing the Windows permission inheritance from it, and removing access by anyone but my user. But that seems to have no effect.
I just ran into the same scenario where I installed cwrsync and didn't have access to chmod via cygwin or other. I was able to fix this using rysnc.exe itself:
Add rsync.exe to your %PATH% if it isn't already there:
PATH=%PATH%;c:\path\to\cwrsync\bin
Change to the folder that your SSH private key is located:
cd c:\users\myuser\.ssh\
Use rsync to perform a local copy of your SSH private key using the chmod switch (700=u+rwx,g=,o=):
rsync --chmod=700 id_dsa id_dsa.bak
Ensure that the rsync command ran successfully by typing each file to ensure the content is the same:
type id_dsa
type id_dsa.bak
Overwrite the original SSH private key with the .bak (which now has the correct permissions):
move id_dsa.bak id_dsa
Test SSH to make sure it is working now:
ssh -i id_dsa myuser#myhost
I've recently run into this issue and phiz's answer didn't work for me. However, Stéphane's solution in comments was helpful and I felt it should be a proper answer rather than a comment.
TLDR: Set Windows permissions on the .ssh folder to full access for yourself and nobody else.
Locate the directory where cwRsync keeps your ssh keys (possibly c:\home\username\.ssh or <path to cwRsync install>\home\username\.ssh). Use the Windows permissions dialog to remove all inherited permissions from this directory, and set full control to your own account only.
(Note that I found it necessary to remove permissions from SYSTEM and Administrators for this to work. It may still work with one or other present, but I removed both at once and found it to work that way.)
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