TortoiseGit using incorrect SSH key

Question

I have a strange problem with tortoise git at the moment, which I can't figure out. When trying to commit to my repository on github I get the error

ERROR: Permission to martindevans/Hermes.git denied to key2

Key2 is a key I use to access a different github repository, however the remote url is not set to use key2, as you can see here it's set to use private.ppk

enter image description here

Am I doing something obviously wrong, or is tortoise git broken?

Nb. In response to the comments. Using normal git results in:

C:\Users\Martin\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\Hermes>git push
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

Does it work correctly if you use regular Git without Tortoise? — Greg Hewgill, Mar 18 '11 at 23:34
Great question! And now that you have an answer with a lot of votes - would you consider marking it as such? — Ian R. O'Brien, May 24 '15 at 14:43

Doomjunky · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-25T19:57:47.357

35

There are different private key formats. My keypair was generated with puttygen, but my Tortoise was configured to use ssh.exe (form msysgit) as ssh-client. So i changed it to plink (from Tortoise) and it worked.

ssh-key.exe => ssh.exe (C:\msysgit\msysgit\bin)
puttygen.exe => TortoisePlink.exe (C:\Program Files\TortoiseGit\bin)

Additional note: Use the correct URL! Github offers you three URL https, git and ssh.

Edit:

I adapted the settings here:

Settings - TortoiseGit >> Network >> SSH-Client
C:\Program Files\TortoiseGit\bin\TortoisePLink.exe

I have generated the key-pair with:

 C:\Program Files\TortoiseGit\bin\puttygen.exe

edited May 25 '15 at 19:57

answered Aug 31 '11 at 21:35

Doomjunky

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Also check on the "AutoLoad Putty Key" option in certain Tortoise dialogs. – JarodMS Aug 27 '12 at 21:27
Where did you change it exactly? – acme Feb 25 '13 at 14:03
If you want to use the OpenSSH key then what are the changes? You use the msysgit ssh and where do you put the ssh key? In the Settings->Remote it says only putty key! – Dheeraj Bhaskar Feb 25 '14 at 20:23
The "Additional note: Use the correct URL!" did it for me. Thanks a bunch! – Olaf Oct 04 '14 at 06:52
great answer - fixed my issue, that I had been trying for 4 hours – Farhan Jun 29 '15 at 11:46
Note that the normal path for ssh in git for Windows is `C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin`, not `C:\msysgit\msysgit\bin`. Git for windows supersedes msysgit. – crimbo Sep 10 '15 at 22:55
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"Additional note: Use the correct URL! Github offers you three URL https, git and ssh." Switched to HTTPS – Nathan Zaetta May 05 '16 at 12:41

score 13 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 20 '12 at 19:09

Hah! ProcMon to the rescue. This is a bug in tortoisegit / tortoiseplink. It should give preference to the key set for that remote via pageant, but instead it gives preference to the key stored in the registry by putty for that specific server. Two fixes.

2 possible fixes here

Your tortoiseplink is integrated with putty, and it's reading the private key you have saved in the putty "Session" associated with that server. At least that's what it was for me. I'm not on github though, so I don't know the viability of this solution for everybody.

I'd recommend deleting the key set manually in the putty session configuration and using pagaent for your putty sessions, as that's what tortoise git does. This also makes tortoisegit use the key set for the remote.

So, you can open up putty, load whatever session you have associated with the server, go to the Connection/SSH/Auth and modify / remove the "Private key file for authentication" value. MOdification may fix this repo but then screw up another repo if you are using different keys for the same server.
You can modify / delete the registry entry yourself. it's HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\Sessions\$SERVERNAME$\PublicKeyFile

tortoisegit bug report : http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/issues/detail?id=1347 — scaryman, Nov 20 '12 at 19:15
There is also the `Default%20Settings` as a `$SERVERNAME` session key that I'd missed which also contained a PublicKeyFile — icc97, Dec 30 '13 at 14:14
Thanks! In my case, it happens when I changed "Private key file" and Auto-login username in "Data" section under "Default Settings" on Putty. When I revert those changes TortoiseGit worked again. — endo64, Dec 04 '19 at 09:41
I had a private key set in my Default Settings for PuTTY under Connection -> SSH -> Auth and it broke both command-line git and TortoiseGit. PLink worked fine when I manually specified the key with the -i option, oddly enough. — Adam Haun, Mar 26 '20 at 16:13

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 11 '16 at 11:59

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I had the same problem setting up my TortoiseGit to access Bitbucket (Win10). To resolve it I had to delete the old saved host keys in the registry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\SshHostKeys (not the (Default) key, tho).

answered Nov 11 '16 at 11:59

we_do_not_exist

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 19 '11 at 01:48

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create the key in git bash:

ssh-keygen -t rsa

Leave everything blank and don't set a password. Take the contents of the ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub and paste it into the public key space provided by github.

Now test this by connecting to github via ssh. If that works, you will be able to use git.

hope this helps.

answered Mar 19 '11 at 01:48

Adam Dymitruk

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Creating a new key may solve the problem temporarily, but I doubt it will solve things long term. This has all been working until today where my computer is apparently deciding to use the wrong key to connect to github. – Martin Mar 19 '11 at 04:45
My Git version cannot even load keys generated this way. The keys I generate with putty get loaded, the ones created with gitbash give the error: "Cannot load keyfile" when trying to push to a repo. – atripes Nov 25 '14 at 13:59

TortoiseGit using incorrect SSH key

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