Saving ssh key fails

Question

i just started a Git tutorial and I get to a deadend: I try to generate a rsa key part and it fails. I did this, in git bash:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "[email protected]" 

And i got this:

Generating public/private rsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/c/Users/Eva/.ssh/id_rsa): enter passphrase: enter same passphrase again: open /c/Users/Eva/.ssh/id_rsa failed: no such file or directory. Saving the key failed:/c/Users/Eva/.ssh/id_rsa. 

I tried to save in a different folder and it went OK. but now i do the command ssh -T [email protected] and it gives me the error permisson denied (publickey).

Answer 1

If you're using Windows, the unix-style default path of ssh-keygen is at fault.

In Line 2 it says Enter file in which to save the key (/c/Users/Eva/.ssh/id_rsa):. That full filename in the parantheses is the default, obviously Windows cannot access a file like that. If you type the Windows equivalent (c:\Users\Eva\.ssh\id_rsa), it should work.

Before running this, you also need to create the folder. You can do this by running mkdir c:\Users\Eva\.ssh, or by created the folder ".ssh." from File Explorer (note the second dot at the end, which will get removed automatically, and is required to create a folder that has a dot at the beginning).

c:\Users\Administrator\.ssh>ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "[email protected]" Generating public/private rsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/home/Administrator/.ssh/id_rsa): C:\Users\Administrator\.ssh\id_rsa Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): Enter same passphrase again: Your identification has been saved in C:\Users\Administrator\.ssh\id_rsa. Your public key has been saved in C:\Users\Administrator\.ssh\id_rsa.pub. The key fingerprint is: ... [email protected] The key's randomart image is:...` 

I know this is an old thread, but I thought the answer might help others.

Answer 2

If you prefer to use a GUI to create the keys

1. Use Putty Gen to generate a key
2. Export the key as an open SSH key
3. As mentioned by @VonC create the .ssh directory and then you can drop the private and public keys in there
4. Or use a GUI program (like Tortoise Git) to use the SSH keys

For a walkthrough on putty gen for the above steps, please see http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_create_and_use_public_keys_with_ssh.html