How to solve Permission denied (publickey) error when using Git?

Question

I'm on Mac Snow Leopard and I just installed git.

I just tried

git clone git@thechaw.com:cakebook.git

but that gives me this error:

Initialized empty Git repository in `/Users/username/Documents/cakebook/.git/`
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

What am I missing?
I've also tried doing ssh-keygen with no passphase but still same error.

have you tried to upload the public key that you have generated via ssh-keygen? — Patrick Cornelissen, Apr 15 '10 at 07:52
My problem was that I tried clone from `sudo` - this is another user with another public key. — Vitaly Zdanevich, Jun 09 '15 at 17:24
same error. I previously created a public key through github, then generated another key-pair with the `ssh-keygen` utility. Deleting the old public key in personal settings on github and adding my ssh generated id_rsa.pub key to SSH and GPG keys fixed the cloning permission issues. — Tanner Dolby, Mar 04 '20 at 08:08

score 900 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 08 '20 at 11:43

900

If the user has not generated a ssh public/private key pair set before

This info is working on theChaw but can be applied to all other git repositories which support SSH pubkey authentications. (See gitolite, gitlab or github for example.)

First start by setting up your own public/private key pair set. This can use either DSA or RSA, so basically any key you setup will work. On most systems you can use ssh-keygen.

First you'll want to cd into your .ssh directory. Open up the terminal and run:

cd ~/.ssh && ssh-keygen

Next you need to copy this to your clipboard.

On OS X run: cat id_rsa.pub | pbcopy

On Linux run: cat id_rsa.pub | xclip

On Windows (via Cygwin/Git Bash) run: cat id_rsa.pub | clip

Add your key to your account via the website.

Finally setup your .gitconfig.

git config --global user.name "bob"

git config --global user.email bob@... (don't forget to restart your command line to make sure the config is reloaded)

That's it you should be good to clone and checkout.

Further information can be found at https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys (thanks to @Lee Whitney) -

If the user has generated a ssh public/private key pair set before

check which key have been authorized on your github or gitlab account settings
determine which corresponding private key must be associated from your local computer

eval $(ssh-agent -s)

define where the keys are located

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

edited Feb 08 '20 at 11:43

Adam Michalak

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answered Apr 15 '10 at 07:59

Rufinus

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Ok. This is actually not a git but an ssh synchronization problem. I got the same with Assembla and you link helped me resolving it. Thanks ! – Alexandre Bourlier Jan 11 '12 at 01:18
This answer is helpful but this seems more complete and just as easy if you are generating keys from scratch: https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys – whitneyland Sep 12 '14 at 15:55
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I experienced a problem with the keygen. It is sensitive to the email address in a global env variable. In case you are having this problem, you will want to specify the email address for your github account in the first step: ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your_email@youremail.com" – melchoir55 Apr 11 '15 at 18:36
cat id_rsa.pub | xclip produces error "Error: Can't open display: (null)", alternatively execute command "cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub" to get the public key. – Lin Song Yang Sep 24 '15 at 23:40
just use the cat command, und copy the content to your clipboard (CTRL-C) yourself. – Rufinus Sep 25 '15 at 08:37
this is just awesome, I can't believe the global config is the cause of the problem. – code4j Oct 29 '15 at 21:43
Will ssh-keygen overwrite my existing key? – tommy.carstensen Jul 23 '16 at 09:35
per default yes. but you can give a own filename – Rufinus Jul 23 '16 at 10:14
Thank you, Sir! I bit the bullet and just did it & it worked! But it seems like a github bug because I have this with one repo; the same repo works fine with a new local clone. The old ssh key is only a few months old and stll valid. Hrrrrmmmm. – n13 Aug 31 '16 at 11:10
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If that still doesn't work, you'll need to `ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa`. – Michael Litvin Jan 05 '17 at 19:36
@MichaelLitvin And if that still doesn't work, then you need to `ssh-add -K `. This is needed if you have a passphrase and want the macOS KeyChain be used to provide the password automatically. – Adam Hošek Nov 01 '17 at 13:04
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Copying using `xclip` on Linux only worked by doing the following `xclip -sel clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub` which is listed here: https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys – Pat Migliaccio Nov 21 '17 at 23:04
Shouldn't you add the key to the ssh agent somewhere in there, like they do in the default github instructions you see in any empty repo on GH? – Hack-R May 01 '18 at 13:23
These commands only work in the git bash prompt. For windows you most likely will need to be in your c:/users//.ssh directory. and also name your key "is_rsa". – RayLoveless Aug 20 '18 at 19:14
its noted in the commands where they work, in the case of windows is clearly states git bash or cygwin. the name of the key does not matter. you should also use `ecdsa` instead of `rsa` – Rufinus Aug 21 '18 at 06:33
thanks for your answer. One thing I would like to ask is why do I have to use `ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa` after rebooting the system every time? Is there a work around to this problem? – scipsycho Jun 08 '19 at 12:36
On Mac see https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/140075/ssh-add-is-not-persistent-between-reboots – Rufinus Jun 10 '19 at 19:44
After upgrading to mac os 10.15.5 I started having this same issue with github.com. I resolved it with `ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa` – Harry Jun 03 '20 at 17:17
what does the line `eval $(ssh-agent -s)` do? – cryanbhu Nov 26 '20 at 07:53
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@cryanbhu https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/23116 – Rufinus Nov 30 '20 at 05:38
Thanks a lot.... I was searching for long time and its work for me... please be sure to restart your terminal :-p – Zulqarnain Jalil Jan 14 '21 at 12:55
Using GitBash as a command prompt helped instead of using Windows Command promt. Thank you – Lizesh Shakya Mar 01 '21 at 08:16

Steve K · Answer 2 · 2021-05-08T16:56:58.960

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More extensive troubleshooting and even automated fixing can be done with:

ssh -vT git@github.com

Alternatively, according to below comments, we could issue:

ssh -vT git@gitlab.com

or substitute gitlab/github with whatever Git Instance your organisation is running.

Source: https://help.github.com/articles/error-permission-denied-publickey/

edited May 08 '21 at 16:56

answered Dec 22 '11 at 22:30

Steve K

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This did a ton of things, and then at the end I noticed 'authenticated successfully', tried `git pull` and it was fine again. – Phil Ricketts Jul 15 '12 at 20:50
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My problem had to do with having a different key for my server. Once I used the above command to determine the issue, I fixed the IdentifyFile in my config file and it worked. – Jarie Bolander Sep 23 '15 at 21:39
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Showed which key github was trying to use to authenticate. v helpful – cdosborn Nov 26 '15 at 23:44
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This doesn't fix anything. I still get the error in OP's question. – IgorGanapolsky Aug 12 '16 at 19:19
ssh -vT git@gitlab.com fixed it for me. – Daniel Aug 15 '16 at 16:15
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I tried and still get the issue as OP. It read *You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access* – Nam G VU Sep 27 '16 at 03:34
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The command is there to help you troubleshoot the issue, it isn't a magic fix-this-for-me switch. – Steve K Feb 16 '17 at 14:28
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I can't say this solved anything, but it is a hell of an interesting command and works with GitHub Enterprise as well. – Hack-R May 01 '18 at 13:25
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In my case `ssh -vT git@gitlab.com` on Windows showed me that it was looking for an rsa key but I only had a dsa key in my .ssh directory. – K.Nicholas Dec 23 '18 at 23:10
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Thank you! By running your provided command, I found my `~/.ssh/config` was modified by some other testing program and wasn't recover back. So I just deleted my `~/.ssh/config` and fix the issue. Cheers! – Jeff Tian Mar 25 '19 at 02:53
You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access. What does that mean? – Ε Г И І И О Oct 17 '19 at 13:50
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Make sure you are trying `ssh` to the correct host. For example, I added the public key correctly to my github account but I was on githubenterprise.com instead of github.com, and therefore, `ssh -vT git@.githubenterprise.com` works but `ssh -vT git@github.com` continues to fail. – user3613932 Jan 11 '21 at 01:03
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I cannot thank you enough for this magic command. It showed me that ssh was using the wrong ID, even after deleteing all with `ssh-add -D`. – CodeMonkey May 07 '21 at 12:01

kavinyao · Answer 3 · 2014-10-16T08:29:02.913

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This error can happen when you are accessing the SSH URL (Read/Write) instead of Git Read-Only URL but you have no write access to that repo.

Sometimes you just want to clone your own repo, e.g. deploy to a server. In this case you actually only need READ-ONLY access. But since that's your own repo, GitHub may display SSH URL if that's your preference. In this situation, if your remote host's public key is not in your GitHub SSH Keys, your access will be denied, which is expected to happen.

An equivalent case is when you try cloning someone else's repo to which you have no write access with SSH URL.

In a word, if your intent is to clone-only a repo, use HTTPS URL (https://github.com/{user_name}/{project_name}.git) instead of SSH URL (git@github.com:{user_name}/{project_name}.git), which avoids (unnecessary) public key validation.

Update: GitHub is displaying HTTPS as the default protocol now and this move can probably reduce possible misuse of SSH URLs.

edited Oct 16 '14 at 08:29

answered May 09 '13 at 15:14

kavinyao

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With the `https://github.com` git url, it still says `SSL certificate problem: self signed certificate in certificate chain`. `git -c http.sslVerify=false clone ...` seems like a dangerous move. Chrome doesn't give any ssl warnings though. Thoughts? – Jason Kleban Nov 26 '14 at 16:06
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@uosɐſ Sorry but I never encountered this problem. Maybe the first thing to do is to try the same command from a different machine and see if the problem persists. – kavinyao Nov 27 '14 at 03:56
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This did it for me, too. Thanks. In order to clone my git repo onto my shared hosting account (1and1) I had to use `git clone https://github.com/MyUserName/MyRepo.git` Simply click on the text links beneath the repo URL to the right of the Github page where it says "_You can clone with HTTPS, SSH, or Subversion._". (Click _HTTPS_ to get the link instead of the default _SSH_.) – Oliver Schafeld Jul 29 '15 at 17:43
Excellent answer. Finally someone explains why it works like that. – Qback Mar 17 '20 at 10:46

jarora · Answer 4 · 2020-12-07T14:45:41.787

123

The github help link helped me sort out this problem. Looks like the ssh key was not added to the ssh-agent. This is what I ended up doing.

Command 1:

Ensure ssh-agent is enabled. The command starts the ssh-agent in the background:

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"

Command 2:

Add your SSH key to the ssh-agent:

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

edited Dec 07 '20 at 14:45

answered Nov 29 '15 at 15:09

jarora

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After upgrade to OSx El Capitan to Sierra this worked for me. – Louwki Sep 21 '16 at 08:53
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Work for me after upgrade to macOS Sierra =) – Adriano Resende Sep 21 '16 at 16:01
This worked for me on Raspberry Pi, where ssh-add has a "-k" flag instead of "-K", apparently. But once I added my deployment key, I was able to successfully clone my repo using its SSH link. – Josh Apr 10 '17 at 20:34
This is the **real solution** and it was copied+pasted to the accepted answer 4 years later (on [Jan 11 ' 19](https://stackoverflow.com/posts/2643584/revisions)), so this deserves all our upvotes! – CPHPython Aug 07 '20 at 10:25

score 44 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 03 '18 at 23:58

Got same error report.

Fixed with using HTTP instead. Since I don't want set "SSH keys" for a test PC.

Change URL to HTTP when clone:

git clone https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git

My problem is a little bit different: I have URL set when adding a existing local repo to remote, by using:

git remote add origin ssh://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git

To fix it, reset URL to HTTP:

git remote set-url origin https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git

BTW, you may check your URL using command:

git remote -v
origin  https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git (push)

Hope this will help some one like me. :D

Zeeshan Shabbir · Answer 6 · 2017-05-24T05:17:52.553

I was struggling with same problem that's what i did and i was able clone the repo. I followed these procedure for iMac.

First Step : Checking if we already have the public SSH key.

Open Terminal.
Enter ls -al ~/.ssh to see if existing SSH keys are present:

Check the directory listing to see if you already have a public SSH key.Default public are one of the following d_dsa.pub,id_ecdsa.pub,id_ed25519.pub,id_rsa.pub

If you don't find then go to step 2 otherwise follow step 3

Step 2 : Generating public SSH key

Open Terminal.
Enter followong command with you valid email address that you use for github ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"
You will see following in terminal Generating public/private rsa key pair. When it prompts to"Enter a file in which to save the key," press Enter. This accepts the default file location. When it prompts to Enter a file in which to save the key (/Users/you/.ssh/id_rsa): [Press enter] Just press enter again. At the prompt, type a secure passphrase.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): [Type a passphrase] press enter if you don't want to Enter same passphrase again: [Type passphrase again] press enter again

This will generate id_rsa.pub

Step 3: Adding your SSH key to the ssh-agent

Interminal type eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
Add your SSH key to the ssh-agent. If you are using an existing SSH key rather than generating a new SSH key, you'll need to replace id_rsa in the command with the name of your existing private key file. Enter this command $ ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Now copy the SSH key and also add it to you github account

In terminal enter this command with your ssh file name pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub This will copy the file to your clipboard Now open you github account Go to Settings > SSH and GPG keys > New SSH key Enter title and paste the key from clipboard and save it. Voila you're done.

Finally after reading here and there for an hour, step by step solution....works great. Remember to add your github password as the passphrase in the steps otherwise will have to add manually everytime — Afshin Ghazi, Jun 11 '18 at 11:53
Great answer. I would also add it was helpful for me to get info on how to change my remote git details -- see this link for details: https://stackoverflow.com/a/63830575/1818235 — Mike, Dec 17 '20 at 16:59

score 28 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 07 '17 at 12:17

28

This works for me:

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

answered Jan 07 '17 at 12:17

Wouter Schoofs

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score 25 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 17 '13 at 20:13

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Note that (at least for some projects) you must have a github account with an ssh key.

Look at the keys listed in your authentication agent (ssh-add -l)
(if you don't see any, add one of your existing keys with ssh-add /path/to/your/key (eg: ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa))
(if you don't have any keys, first create one. See: http://rcsg-gsir.imsb-dsgi.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/documents/internet/node31.html or just google ssh-keygen)

To verify that you have a key associated with your github account:

Go to: https://github.com/settings/ssh

You should see at least one key with a hash key matching one of the hashes you saw when you typed ssh-add -l just a minute ago.

If you don't, add one, then try again.

answered Jan 17 '13 at 20:13

Mason Bryant

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This worked for me. It happened to me because my key was not added to the auth agent. Thanks. – antonD Dec 06 '19 at 10:37
You know you have this problem if you have been asked to connect with an SSH key (url looks like `git@github.company.com` instead of `https://github.company.com`) but your Github settings don't have an SSH key. Github supplies step-by-step directions at https://docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/generating-a-new-ssh-key-and-adding-it-to-the-ssh-agent. – Noumenon Feb 06 '21 at 10:22

score 19 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 11 '20 at 20:43

Another possibility on Windows, which is not covered in any of these answers, and is not covered in the git or github docs on troubleshooting:

git may be using a different openssh executable than you think it is.

I was receiving the Permission denied (public key) error when trying to clone or pull from github and ssh.dev.azure.com, and I'd followed all the instructions and verified that my SSH keys were setup correctly (from SSH's standpoint) using ssh -vT git@github.com and ssh -vT git@ssh.dev.azure.com. And was still getting these errors:

git@github.com: Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

I eventually figured out that the problem is that Git for Windows, and Windows, both have their own versions of openssh. This is documented here: https://github.com/desktop/desktop/issues/5641

I was relying on the Windows ssh-agent service to store my ssh key passphrases, so git (with it's separate version of openssh) couldn't read my private keys. I consider it a bug that this error message is used - it's misleading.

The fix was:

git config --global core.sshCommand "'C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\ssh.exe'"

Or in your ~/.gitconfig:

[core]
    sshCommand = 'C:\\Windows\\System32\\OpenSSH\\ssh.exe'

Perhaps this will be fixed in git for Windows soon, but this is the 2nd time I've wasted time on this issue.

Thank you for this answer, this really helped me! – karolberezicki Apr 02 '21 at 16:25 — karolberezicki, Apr 02 '21 at 16:25

score 16 · Answer 10 · edited Sep 03 '18 at 19:11

16

I met the same issue because of I was thought the difference between SSH and HTTPS is

https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git

ssh://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git

So I changed from HTTPS to SSH just by changing https:// to ssh:// nothing on the end of the url was changed.

But the truth is:

https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git

git@github.com:USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git

Which means I changed ssh://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git to git@github.com:USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git it works.

Stupid error but hope helps someone!

edited Sep 03 '18 at 19:11

Amir

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answered Jul 28 '16 at 03:53

William Hu

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yes, i changed `ssh://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git` to `git@github.com:USERNAME/REPOSITORY.git` it works. – William Hu Jul 28 '16 at 04:22
Sure. I'm just saying I don't see the point of mentioning the https ;) – OneCricketeer Jul 28 '16 at 04:26
I see because i just use `ssh` instead of `https` so i just changed 'https://' to 'ssh://` then i got the error. So change 'ssh://git/../` to 'git@../" : ) Edited my answer. – William Hu Jul 28 '16 at 04:36
It works for me. Thank you very much! I tried https and then ssh but it still keeps denying my access until make it your way with "git clone git@github.com:/myusername/myproject.git". – Thach Van Sep 17 '18 at 22:42

Ezra Siton · Answer 11 · 2020-12-22T08:45:23.380

Visual guide (Windows)

1 of 2. Git batch side

1.1. Open git batch (Download her)

1.2. Paste the text below (Change to your GitHub account email)

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"

1.3. Press Enter (Accepts the default file location)

1.4. Click Enter Twice (Or set SSH key passphrases - Gitbub passphrases docs)

> Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): [Type a passphrase]
> Enter same passphrase again: [Type passphrase again]

1.5. The key generate:

Your identification has been saved in /c/Users/user/.ssh/id_rsa...

1.6. Copy the SSH key to your clipboard.

$ clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

2 of 2. Github website user side

Under user setting

SSH and GPG keys => New SSH key:

Paste the code from step 1.6

Done :)

If someone doesn't want to use SSH use HTTPS :

Github docs: https://docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/connecting-to-github-with-ssh

score 13 · Answer 12 · answered Dec 17 '13 at 00:43

13

I had a slight different situation, I was logged on to a remote server and was using git on the server, when I ran any git command I got the same message

   Permission denied (publickey).
   fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

The way I fixed it was by changing the file /etc/ssh_config on my Mac. from

ForwardAgent no

to

ForwardAgent yes

answered Dec 17 '13 at 00:43

Richipal

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The error was occurring while trying to fetch gems from github from a VirtualBox VM. Updated my Vagrantfile to use `config.ssh.forward_agent = true`, restarted the VM, and now it works. – Chris Bloom Jan 08 '15 at 15:49
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Might not be the best choice in terms of security according to this: https://heipei.github.io/2015/02/26/SSH-Agent-Forwarding-considered-harmful/ – Dad Dec 29 '16 at 05:35

score 6 · Answer 13 · answered Nov 07 '12 at 20:58

6

On Windows, make sure all your apps agree on HOME. Msys will surprisingly NOT do it for you. I had to set an environment variable because ssh and git couldn't seem to agree on where my .ssh directory was.

answered Nov 07 '12 at 20:58

Jason

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Vizllx · Answer 14 · 2016-04-20T06:17:39.583

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One of the easiest way

go to terminal-

  git push <Git Remote path> --all

edited Apr 20 '16 at 06:17

answered Nov 06 '13 at 06:04

Vizllx

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Andrew · Answer 15 · 2014-05-30T17:43:38.970

Are you in a corporate environment? Is it possible that your system variables have recently changed? Per this SO answer, ssh keys live at %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\.ssh\id_rsa.pub. So if %HOMEDRIVE% recently changed, git doesn't know where to look for your key, and thus all of the authentication stuff.

Try running ssh -vT git@github.com. Take note of where the identity file is located. For me, that was pointing not to my normal \Users\MyLogin but rather to a network drive, because of a change to environment variables pushed at the network level.

The solution? Since my new %HOMEDRIVE% has the same permissions as my local files, I just moved my .ssh folder there, and called it a day.

this work for me. yesterday my ssh key working but today some setting of my system get changed. I just add shh key again and it's working now. — Hitesh Agarwal, Jan 30 '18 at 04:55

score 6 · Answer 16 · edited Mar 10 '20 at 10:52

Guys this is how it worked for me:

Open terminal and go to user [See attached image]
Open .ssh folder and make sure it doesn't have any file like id_rsa or id_rsa.pub otherwise sometimes it wont properly rewrite files
git --version [Check for git installation and version]
git config --global user.email "your email id"
git config --global user.name "your name"
git config --list [make sure you have set your name & email]
cd ~/.ssh
ssh-keygen, it prompts for saving file, allow it
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub [Access your public key & copy the key to gerrit settings]

Note: You should not be using the sudo command with Git. If you have a very good reason you must use sudo, then ensure you are using it with every command (it's probably just better to use su to get a shell as root at that point). If you generate SSH keys without sudo and then try to use a command like sudo git push, you won't be using the same keys that you generated

score 6 · Answer 17 · answered Dec 02 '19 at 18:56

6

I had to copy my ssh keys to the root folder. Google Cloud Compute Engine running Ubuntu 18.04

sudo cp ~/.ssh/* /root/.ssh/

answered Dec 02 '19 at 18:56

Kandarp

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Satishakumar Awati · Answer 18 · 2020-11-03T06:51:40.513

These are the steps I followed in windows 10

Open Git Bash.

Generate Public Key:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "youremailaddress@xyz.com"

Copy generated key to the clipboard (works like CTRL+C)
```
clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
```
Browser, go to Github => Profile=> Settings => SSH and GPG keys => Add Key
Provide the key name and paste clipboard (CTRL+V).
Finally, test your connection (Git bash)
```
ssh -T git@github.com
```

Thanks!

score 5 · Answer 19 · answered May 02 '12 at 19:36

The basic GIT instructions did not make a reference to the SSH key stuff. Following some of the links above, I found a git help page that explains, step-by-step, exactly how to do this for various operating systems (the link will detect your OS and redirect, accordingly):

http://help.github.com/set-up-git-redirect/

It walks through everything needed for GITHub and also gives detailed explanations such as "why add a passphrase when creating an RSA key." I figured I'd post it, in case it helps someone else...

duhaime · Answer 20 · 2018-06-30T16:07:29.750

5

I hit this error because I needed to give my present working directory permissions 700:

chmod -R 700 /home/ec2-user/

edited Jun 30 '18 at 16:07

answered Jun 29 '18 at 17:33

duhaime

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score 3 · Answer 21 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

3

In addition to Rufinus' reply, the shortcut to copy your ssh key to the clipboard in Windows is:

type id_rsa.pub | clip

Refs:

edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Community

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answered Sep 04 '14 at 05:55

Jonathan

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score 3 · Answer 22 · answered Jul 03 '16 at 00:08

3

If you have more than one key you may need to do ssh-add private-keyfile

answered Jul 03 '16 at 00:08

kashif

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Thanks a lot! This was indeed my issue. – GoGreen Jul 15 '16 at 07:20
[root@li566-238 hanjiyun]# ssh-add private-keyfile private-keyfile: No such file or directory – J.Y Han Feb 06 '17 at 04:55

score 2 · Answer 23 · answered Dec 13 '15 at 09:21

2

I have just experienced this issue while setting my current project, and none of the above solution works. so i tried looking what's really happening on the debug list using the command ssh -vT git@github.com. I notice that my private key filename is not on the list. so renaming the private key filename to 'id_rsa' do the job. hope this could help.

answered Dec 13 '15 at 09:21

Rhey M.

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Not helpful in cases when you're **using** the "id_rsa" key for anything else.... – random_user_name Jan 06 '16 at 21:37

score 2 · Answer 24 · answered Feb 14 '16 at 05:12

It worked for me.

Your public key is saved to the id_rsa.pub;file and is the key you upload to your account. You can save this key to the clipboard by running this:

pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

copy the SSH key to the clipboard, return to the web portal.
In the SSH Key field, paste your SSH key.
In the Name field, provide a name for the key.
save .

score 2 · Answer 25 · answered Aug 23 '16 at 05:42

Its pretty straight forward. Type the below command

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "youremailid@yourdomain.com"

Generate the SSH key. Open the file and copy the contents. Go to GitHub setting page , and click on SSH key . Click on Add new SSH key, and paste the contents here. That's it :) You shouldn't see the issue again.

score 2 · Answer 26 · answered Nov 20 '16 at 21:28

2

The easiest solution to this, when you are trying to push to a repository with a different username is:

 git remote set-url origin https://USERNAME@github.com/USERNAME/PROJECTNAME.git

answered Nov 20 '16 at 21:28

Nizar B.

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score 2 · Answer 27 · answered Jul 27 '17 at 12:59

In my MAC I solved this with:

cp ~/.ssh/github_rsa ~/.ssh/id_rsa

For some reason my git stopped to find the private key in the github_rsa file. This happened in a specific repo. I mean that in other repositories git kept working normally.

I think it's a bug.

I could find this behavior running ssh -vT git@github.com

score 2 · Answer 28 · answered Mar 17 '20 at 16:49

In MAC, go to Terminal

1) Navigate to Home Directory using command - cd ~

2) cd .ssh && ssh-keygen (For Defaults, click on Enter/Return key for both inputs)

Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/username/.ssh/id_rsa):      
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): 
Enter same passphrase again: 
Your identification has been saved in /Users/usernmae/.ssh/id_rsa.

3) After that , Do "ls". you will find id_rsa.pub file.

4) Copy the contents in the id_rsa.pub file (read using the cat command - cat id_rsa.pub)

5) Navigate to BitBucket or any version tool which supports the SSH keys. Paste the contents using the Add Key Option

That's it. Try to commit and push now.

score 1 · Answer 29 · answered Jun 13 '13 at 17:01

I was getting a similar Permission denied (publickey) error when trying to run a makefile.

As an alternative to the SSH steps above, you can Install the native GitHub for Mac application.

Click Download GitHub for Mac from - https://help.github.com/articles/set-up-git#platform-mac

Once you complete setup with your git hub account (I also installed the git hub command line tools but unsure if this step is required or not) then I received an email -

[GitHub] A new public key was added to your account

and my error was fixed.

score 1 · Answer 30 · answered Jul 29 '15 at 19:24

I was getting the same error. My problem was mixing in sudo.

I couldn't create the directory I was cloning into automatically without prefixing the git clone command with sudo. When I did that, however, my ssh keys where not being properly referenced.

To fix it, I set permissions via chmod on the parent directory I wanted to contain my clone so I could write to it. Then I ran git clone WITHOUT a sudo prefix. It then worked! I changed the permissions back after that. Done.

score 1 · Answer 31 · answered Dec 15 '15 at 18:59

1

I was getting this error because I generated the ssh keys with the wrong email. I was able to connect using ssh, but not using git. The solution was to regenerate the keys using the main email address of my github account.

answered Dec 15 '15 at 18:59

Charles Brunet

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score 1 · Answer 32 · answered Apr 06 '16 at 07:26

1

It worked for me

ssh -i [your id_rsa path] -T github@github.com

answered Apr 06 '16 at 07:26

Mr陈哲

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You'd rather explain why your answer would solve his problem, thanks. – Muhammed Refaat Apr 06 '16 at 10:32

score 1 · Answer 33 · answered Jun 26 '17 at 04:50

This strange error, in my case was a symptom of gnome-keyring-daemon incorrectly naming the key to which it required a password.

I follow the steps outlined here, and entered the password via the terminal. The error, aka the confounding GUI interface, was resolved. See: https://askubuntu.com/questions/3045/how-to-disable-gnome-keyring

score 1 · Answer 34 · answered Jul 06 '17 at 07:19

In my case, I have reinstalled ubuntu and the user name is changed from previous. In this case the the generated ssh key also differs from the previous one.

The issue solved by just copy the current ssh public key, in the repository. The key will be available in your user's /home/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

score 1 · Answer 35 · answered Nov 28 '18 at 19:26

1

Execute the terminal as admin.

If the terminal can't see your .ssh it will return that error.

answered Nov 28 '18 at 19:26

Raul Barros

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score 1 · Answer 36 · answered Feb 13 '21 at 07:06

For me the problem was using sudo:

sudo git clone git@github.com:userName/repo.git was resulting in the error mentioned above.

So to fix this I chown the folder I was trying to clone into

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/iqge.org/html

then using this git clone git@github.com:userName/repo.git was successfully done

score 0 · Answer 37 · answered Sep 05 '12 at 17:53

0

Use the ssh link from Github but make sure to not append it with ssh just use what the ssh tab on git hub gives you to clone your repo.

answered Sep 05 '12 at 17:53

pal4life

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score 0 · Answer 38 · answered Apr 03 '17 at 09:31

I was able to get over this issue by following below steps in my ubuntu system. As i was experimenting with passwordless ssh to the system.

sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

1) Commented below : #Change to no to disable tunnelled clear text passwords #PasswordAuthentication yes PasswordAuthentication no ----> commented this.

2) Then restarted the sshd daemon as below.

service sshd restart

score 0 · Answer 39 · answered May 28 '17 at 20:28

Steps for Mac:

Switch user ( sudo su - jenkins)
Generate key ( ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "username") . Username is one with which you are using with jenkins.
Copy generated public key (cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub).
Paste the key to git account. (Settings -> SSH and CPG keys -> New ssh keys -> Enter name of the key (can be any) and paste the key to description).

score 0 · Answer 40 · answered Oct 07 '17 at 06:04

0

$ cd ~
$ cd .ssh
$ chmod 400 id_rsa

answered Oct 07 '17 at 06:04

539f

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Load key id_rsa: bad permissions Permissions 0755 for id_rsa are too open. It is required that your private key files are NOT accessible by others. – 539f Oct 08 '17 at 07:33

score 0 · Answer 41 · answered Dec 19 '17 at 15:51

Let me share my experience too,

I was trying to clone some project from the Gerrit repo where I got my public keys in account settings.

On the first attempt to make git clone I got the following error:

Unable to negotiate with XX.XX.XX.XX port XXX: no matching key exchange
method found. Their offer: diffie-hellman-group1-sha1

I figured out that I need to pass the SSH option -oKexAlgorithms=+diffie-hellman-group1-sha1 somehow to git clone.

Hopefully GIT_SSH_COMMAND environment variable did the job:

export GIT_SSH_COMMAND="ssh -oKexAlgorithms=+diffie-hellman-group1-sha1"

But git clone still didn't start to work.. Now it throws the (on topic):

Permission denied (publickey).

I got already SSH keys and didn't want to regenerate them. I checked plain SSH connection to the host and it was ok:

****    Welcome to Gerrit Code Review    ****

  Hi XXXXX, you have successfully connected over SSH.

  Unfortunately, interactive shells are disabled.
  To clone a hosted Git repository, use:

  git clone ssh://xxxxx@xx.xx.xx:xxx/REPOSITORY_NAME.git

I was confused a bit. I started again and turned on the debug for SSH via -vvv option. And I saw the following:

debug1: read_passphrase: can't open /dev/tty: No such device or address

Possibly, it was an overhead for the GIT_SSH_COMMAND env variable - my key was secured with passphrase (and I entered it when I was checking the login to the git repo host).

So, I decided to get rid of the phasphrase then. A simple command helped me:

ssh-keygen -p

Then I entered my passphrase for the "old passphrase" and just hit ENTER twice on the "new passphare" to leave it empty i.e. with no passphrase at all and to confirm my choice.

After that I got the freshly cloned repo on my local disk.

simhumileco · Answer 42 · 2020-01-23T17:54:23.207

0

First of all, I recommend checking some standard things like:

login as the correct user in your system,
have the right private key in the right location in your system,
try to connect with the correct username, hostname, and port,
have the public key in the right location (and for the right user) in the external server,
restarted the ssh service at your computer:

service ssh restart

(or in another way depending on how you manage services in your system...)

It was enough for me.

edited Jan 23 '20 at 17:54

answered Mar 23 '19 at 16:18

simhumileco

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What is wrong with this answer? Why somebody gives me -1 vote? Maybe I can improve it, if I will know what is wrong with this current one? Please help me smebody, who know what could be wrong. Thank you in advance. – simhumileco Jan 23 '20 at 17:53
`$ service ssh restart` bash: service: command not found – GirkovArpa Nov 12 '20 at 10:22
Hi @GirkovArpa, maybe this will help: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/restart-services-%27service%27-command-not-found-88809/ – simhumileco Nov 13 '20 at 12:13

score 0 · Answer 43 · answered Jan 15 '20 at 15:51

I also had the exact same error.

The problem was that when copying the public key into BitBucket (in my case), a non-visible newline at the end was copy/pasted.

So when copying the public key, first copy it to notepad, remove the empty line at the end, copy it, and paste it.

score 0 · Answer 44 · answered Aug 13 '20 at 07:51

Possible that public/private config is incorrect. please follow the steps to do it. execute command anywhere in window

ssh-keygen -o -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa

now go to the c://users/xyz/.ssh/ and open the id_rsa key (path can vary) now go to the gitlab and userprofile> setting>ssh keys and add your key here. now try clone

score 0 · Answer 45 · answered Feb 24 '21 at 16:03

When ever I get a new computer at work or switch jobs these are steps I follow setup github access. Mac or Windows

-Go to https://github.[yourWorkDomain].com. navigate to Settings → Developer Settings → Personal access tokens
-Generate a new token
-Set the token description and only check the “repo” box for scope (this will give you repo:status, repo_deployment, public_repo, repo:invite access)

-After your are given the token, copy it (don't navigate away yet, confirm the next two steps work)
-Try to clone the repo again(using “https”)
-For the username use your Username
-For the password, paste the token you copied
-All future requests should work now without asking for your username and password.

score 0 · Answer 46 · answered Apr 20 '21 at 13:52

Make a new folder Anywhere in your PC (ex. on desktop)
Move to that new folder and open git bash there.

& Write Following Code there in bash:

$ git init
$ git remote add origin https://github.com/YOUR_GITHUB_HANDLER/YOUR_REPO_NAME.git
$ git pull origin master

(See that new folder whether files are pulled or not)

If files are pulled, then first Delete all files/folders from that older folder (where the described error occurs) including .git folder

& Copy all files from new folder including .git and paste it to our older folder where the described error occurs.

This will fetch you remote repo.

If you want to fetch remote repo without removing new changes which you have made locally, then only copy & paste our new .git folder

Now you will able to do $ git push origin master

How to solve Permission denied (publickey) error when using Git?

46 Answers46

Visual guide (Windows)

1 of 2. Git batch side

2 of 2. Github website user side

Linked

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