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

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 

Answer 1

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.

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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 

Answer 2

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.

1. 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.

2. You can modify / delete the registry entry yourself. it's HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\Sessions\$SERVERNAME$\PublicKeyFile