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This is extremely frustrating.

I host a piece of software on my server for my father. He connects to it via #SSH (using #PuTTY ). He just got a new computer, and wanted me to set it up so that he could connect, just like I did with his previous computer. No problem right?

I show up, generate the key, and authorize it on the server, but for whatever reason PuTTY refuses to acknowledge the existence of this key. I know it's not even trying, because it doesn't even ask for the passphrase to decrypt it.

Has something changed in the latest version of PuTTY that I just don't know about? Do I need to do something the enable public key authentication beyond simply specifying the path to the key?

#AskFedi

Shot in the dark, but is it in the putty key format?
@Whovian NineThreeSixNine Yup. It's .ppk and was generated with the keygen program that came with it.
There goes my idea - Good luck!
you might see if one of the puTTY forks like kiTTY (not to be confused with the kitty terminal) have a UI layout closer to what you/he are used to
@Nire Bryce PuTTY is what he's used up until now. 🤷‍♂️
yeah, but the forks have most of their interfaces fixed in the version they forked from, so they might be a way to find similar UI to what you're both used to while still having whatever security improvements
This entry was edited (4 months ago)

Okay, here's where it gets weird:

I installed PuTTY on my home machine using Wine so I could test it. It worked flawlessly.

Stranger and stranger still. This process works for signing into my account, but not his. I can however sign to his account with a regular SSH session, as opposed to PuTTY.

It turns out I'm an idiot.

I have a bunch of machines on my LAN that all port forward out to the same VPS on different ports. I was mistaken about the port number (and therefore the host) and his account wasn't actually there. This is why it didn't bother with the key, and is also why I could connect as I have an account on all of them.

Perhaps it's a file permission error? Is it 700? And readable only by the user? Is it owned by the user?

grep -i pubkey /etc/ssh/sshd_config

PubkeyAuthentication yes

Oh Glad you figured it out. Your initial thoughts and frustrations seems pretty normal. What won the day was your persistent to search several paths -- run PuTTY via Wine -- goodness. Hope your dad was pleased. Cheers, -Randy

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