Question
Can't login to my server with my SSH key
- Posted on April 18, 2020
- Initial Server SetupSecurity
Asked by reyesjmf
I created a new droplet and set it to use the usual SSH key on my account that I generated a long time ago with PuttyGen on Windows. I’m on a Mac now so I just copied over the PPK file thinking that I could use it to login. Turns out I can’t. I tried changing the permission of the file using chmod 600 but that didnt work. I went back to my Windows machine and used PuttyGen to convert the .ppk to an open ssh one. Same filename but with a .pem extension. I still can’t login to my server. Im geetting this:
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED! @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that a host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the ECDSA key sent by the remote host is [a long string of letters and numbers]
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /Users/me/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending ECDSA key in /Users/me/.ssh/known_hosts:1
ECDSA host key for IPADDRESS has changed and you have requested strict checking.
Host key verification failed.
Anybody?
This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.
You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!
These answers are provided by our Community. If you find them useful, show some love by clicking the heart. If you run into issues leave a comment, or add your own answer to help others.
Get our biweekly newsletter
Sign up for Infrastructure as a Newsletter.
Hollie's Hub for Good
Working on improving health and education, reducing inequality, and spurring economic growth? We'd like to help.
Become a contributor
Get paid to write technical tutorials and select a tech-focused charity to receive a matching donation.
Hi there @reyesjmf,
You could try using the
ssh-keygencommand to delete the invalid key from yourknown_hostsfile. The command that you need to use would be:Let me know how it goes! Regards, Bobby
@bobbyiliev It worked like a charm! I ran your command and tried to connect with:
I got an error that my file wasn’t accessible and got “Warning: Permanently added ‘IPADDRESS’ (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts. Permission denied”
I tried again by adding the file path this way:
This time I was able to login.
Thanks for the help!