Using Ruby and net-ssh, how do I authenticate using the key_data parameter with Net::SSH.start?

Question

I've read the net-ssh documentation, and I am still perplexed. I can authenticate manually (using ssh -i ...), and also by placing the key in a file and using the :keys parameter. However, I dont want to use the :keys parameter, I want to use the :key_data parameter. Can anyone give a working example? For some reason, directly feeding a string into :key_data is not working, and it gives the error: "Neither PUB key nor PRIV key:: nested asn1 error". Of course I googled that, and it basically tells me to make sure the key is in PEM format. And, of course it is. Any ideas? I can provide more detailed info if needed...

Answer 1

I see this question in pretty old but I am going to throw the answer to you anyway just in case as I had the same issue and I just solved it.

In the following code note that the string containing the RSA key is not indented at all anywhere. The second line of the key does not have any leading space in it. TextMate put this there when I pasted the key in. I removed it and it worked like a charm.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'rubygems'
require 'net/ssh'

HOST = '172.20.0.31'
USER = 'root'

KEYS = [ "-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIEogIBAAKCAQEAqccvUza8FCinI4X8HSiXwIqQN6TGvcNBJnjPqGJxlstq1IfU
kFa3S9eJl+CBkyjfvJ5ggdLN0S2EuGWwc/bdE3LKOWX8F15tFP0=
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----" ]

Net::SSH.start( HOST, USER, :key_data => KEYS, :keys_only => TRUE) do|ssh|
result = ssh.exec!('ls')
puts result
end