Github: Permission denied (publickey)

Question

Update

Ran into this again today - when my work laptop was taken home - appears that a Window domain might be the underlying issue. Found the solution here:

SSH is looking in the wrong place for the public/private key pair on Windows

Original Question

I've had Git working fine for the last few months, this morning I try and make a push and I'm asked to confirm RSA cert for the IP - I double check github IP and it's ok so I add the certificate. But I'm getting:

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

When I try to push or pull.

I read Git - Permission denied (publickey) and tried adding my key again to Github but I'm told:

Key is already in use

Running

ssh -vT [email protected]

Retuns:

OpenSSH_4.6p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8e 23 Feb 2007
debug1: Connecting to github.com [207.97.227.239] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /p/.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /p/.ssh/id_rsa type -1
debug1: identity file /p/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debia
n-5github2
debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-5github2 pat OpenSSH*
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_4.6
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: server->client aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none
debug1: kex: client->server aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY
debug1: Host 'github.com' is known and matches the RSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /p/.ssh/known_hosts:1
debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /p/.ssh/identity
debug1: Trying private key: /p/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Trying private key: /p/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: No more authentication methods to try.
Permission denied (publickey).

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

Seems like you have a bunch of private keys:

debug1: Trying private key: /p/.ssh/identity
debug1: Trying private key: /p/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Trying private key: /p/.ssh/id_dsa

Do you recognize any of these?

You might try to specify the key to be used with -i:

ssh -i /path/to/key -vT [email protected]

Maybe this will help.

Answer 2

I ran into this same issue today. My private key wasn't owned by the account I was logged in with.

For anyone else make sure that your account is the owner of the key. In my case it wasn't as it was copied from another account.

Running ssh -i /path/to/key -vT [email protected] as noted by @lum showed me that I didn't have permission to access my private key. Changing owner on the key fixed my issue.

debug1: could not open key file '/home/matt/.ssh/id_rsa': Permission denied

Hope this helps future people.