SSH-Keygen "no such file or directory"

Question

Trying to Generate a public key for my git. Using Powershell.

PS>ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[email protected]" Generating public/private rsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (//.ssh/id_rsa): Could not create directory '//.ssh': Read-only file system Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): Enter same passphrase again: Saving key "//.ssh/id_rsa" failed: No such file or directory 

If I give a location for the file and run

ssh -vT [email protected] 

It doesn't check the custom location for the public key to use

OpenSSH_7.1p1, OpenSSL 1.0.2d 9 Jul 2015 debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: Connecting to github.com [<<ANIPADDRESS>>] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory debug1: identity file /.ssh/id_rsa type -1 debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory debug1: identity file /.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1 debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory debug1: identity file /.ssh/id_dsa type -1 debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory debug1: identity file /.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1 debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory debug1: identity file /.ssh/id_ecdsa type -1 debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory debug1: identity file /.ssh/id_ecdsa-cert type -1 debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory debug1: identity file /.ssh/id_ed25519 type -1 debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory debug1: identity file /.ssh/id_ed25519-cert type -1 debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_7.1 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version libssh-0.7.0 debug1: no match: libssh-0.7.0 debug1: Authenticating to github.com:22 as 'git' debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug1: kex: server->client [email protected] <implicit> none debug1: kex: client->server [email protected] <implicit> none debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_REPLY debug1: Server host key: ssh-rsa SHA256:<<SCAREDTOPUBLISH>> debug1: Host 'github.com' is known and matches the RSA host key. debug1: Found key in /.ssh/known_hosts:1 debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: Roaming not allowed by server 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: /.ssh/id_rsa debug1: Trying private key: /.ssh/id_dsa debug1: Trying private key: /.ssh/id_ecdsa debug1: Trying private key: /.ssh/id_ed25519 debug1: No more authentication methods to try. Permission denied (publickey). 

Answer 1

PS>ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[email protected]" Generating public/private rsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (//.ssh/id_rsa): Could not create directory '//.ssh': Read-only file system Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): Enter same passphrase again: Saving key "//.ssh/id_rsa" failed: No such file or directory 

The command could not save your key. Specify a file, at a location where you have write access:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[email protected]" -f /path/to/key 

This will save your private key in /path/to/key and the public key in /path/to/key.pub. When successful, instead of an error message, you will see something like:

Your identification has been saved in /path/to/key. Your public key has been saved in /path/to/key.pub. The key fingerprint is: 76:f7:82:04:1e:64:eb:9c:df:dc:0a:6b:26:73:1b:2c The key's randomart image is: +--[ RSA 2048]----+ |        o        | |       o .       | |        +        | |       + +       | |        S o .    | |       . = = o   | |        E * + o  | |        o.++ o   | |         *o..    | +-----------------+ 

And then, to make ssh look for the file at the custom location, use the -i flag:

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

Alternatively, if you have an authentication agent running, you can add your key to the agent with:

ssh-add /path/to/key 

Once your key is stored by the agent, you can simply do:

ssh -T [email protected] 

The response should look something like:

Hi USER! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access. 

And you can go ahead and clone your repository with:

git clone [email protected]:USER/REPO 

Answer 2

For me, the ssh-keygen command appears to fail only when using cmd:

Your identification has been saved in [...]/.ssh/id_rsa. fdopen [...]/.ssh/id_rsa.pub failed: No such file or directory

The private key is generated, but the public key file is created with 0 bytes.

If I run the command in Git Bash on Windows, it works.