ssh permission denied public key

road hazard · 08-24-2022, 07:26 PM

Trying to ssh into a remote box. I tried using ssh-copy-id to push my keys and got this:

Code:

/usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: Source of key(s) to be installed: "/home/roadhazard/.ssh/id_rsa.pub"
/usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: attempting to log in with the new key(s), to filter out any that are already installed
/usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: 1 key(s) remain to be installed -- if you are prompted now it is to install the new keys
test@blah.blah.blah.blah: Permission denied (publickey).

Knowing that it would fail, I tried ssh'ing into it anyway and got this:

Code:

ssh user@blah.blah.blah.blah -p blah
user@blah.blah.blah.blah: Permission denied (publickey).

I can ssh into this remote system from other Windows and Linux boxes at my house with no issue. But this single PC can't ssh into that remote system so I don't think the problem is on the remote PC but I'm baffled as to why this one PC can't get to it.

Here's the log file from the remote PC when I attempted to ssh into it:

Code:

Aug 24 20:21:22 test sshd[1586]: Connection closed by authenticating user test1 blah.blah.blah.blah port 58320 [preauth]
Aug 24 20:21:23 test sshd[1588]: Connection closed by authenticating user test1 blah.blah.blah.blah port 58332 [preauth]
Aug 24 20:21:23 test sshd[1590]: Connection closed by authenticating user test1 blah.blah.blah.blah port 58346 [preauth]
Aug 24 20:21:24 test sshd[1592]: Connection closed by authenticating user test1 blah.blah.blah.blah port 58358 [preauth]

Does that shed light on anything?

michaelk · 08-24-2022, 09:54 PM

Not really. Searching a bit finds many possible causes.

Is the server configured to use keys only? A bit difficult to use ssh-copy-id without being able to login without using keys or some other authentication...

Have you previously logged in via ssh with this client?
Have you previously setup keys for this client/user?
Are the permissions correct for the .ssh directory and private key?

What distribution / version and ssh version is running on the remote and client PCs?
Have you updated either system lately?

Have you tried copying the private key from another linux box for the same remote user to see if that works?

Adding -v to debug i.e. ssh -v user@blah.blah.blah.blah -p blah might provide additional clues.

Something might be wrong with the authorized_keys file on the remote.

pan64 · 08-25-2022, 07:18 AM

yes, something is wrong, ssh-copy-id failed, so it did not work, the copied id cannot be used (as far as I see).

TenTenths · 08-25-2022, 09:47 AM

Ensure the target server allows password based authentication, it's set up to only allow key based authentication that may be why you're not getting a password prompt on both the ssh-copy-id and ssh user@

dc.901 · 08-25-2022, 09:49 AM

have you tried to ssh with -v flag?

Code:

ssh -vvv <user>@<remote machine IP>