Linux – SSH key asking me for a passphrase

cygwin;linuxputtyssh

I have a public/private key pair. Neither of them have any sort of passphrase associated with them.

Whenever I try to ssh using either the private or public(and I'm pretty sure I should only be using the public key), I get queried for a passphrase, and then of course can't connect up.

Anyone have any idea how to get around this? Am I typing some command incorretly? I am trying to ssh into a server that I have setup in my ~/.ssh/config file(correctly, since this exact same setup works on another server) with the key stored in ~/.ec2/key.ppk

I've also tried using puttygen.exe to generate a new private key WITH a passphrase, and then using that key, and when I type the passphrase, it still fails.

Best Answer

First off it's the private key that will have the pass-phrase. This validates against the public key stored on the remote server.

Best guess is that your are trying to use a putty private key (ppk) key format with openssh this doesn't work.... PuTTYgen has an export option for openssh if this is the case.

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1y...... etc

I also assume that the server you are trying to ssh to has your public key stored correctly in the authorized key file (in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys generally).

Another guess would be that the correct key isn't be selected. Some things I would try are:

Resetting the keys pass-phrase using ssh-keygen, like this...

$ ssh-keygen -f ~/.ec2/key.ppk -p

This will confirm if in fact your key does (or does not) have a pass-phrase on it already.

Secondly I'd try connecting using a verbose output, specifying your public key explicitly output:

$ ssh host -i ~/.ec2/key.ppk -vvv

This will give you more of an idea of what is going on.

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