Question

The provided ssh_keys value must be an array.

Posted on February 18, 2019
Ubuntu 18.04 Ghost API Python Automated Setups
Asked by traumalligator

I’m receiving The provided ssh_keys value must be an array., and I’ve tried various dumping of the array of ssh key ids. using API attribute described in https://developers.digitalocean.com/documentation/v2/#create-a-new-droplet.

# list of numbers
print(type(key_ids), key_ids)
<class 'list'> [12345678, 12345678]

# stringified list via `str()` or via `json.dumps()`
<class 'str'> [12345678, 12345678]

# mapping each value to string, seems unlikely since ids are returned as numbers when creating droplets... but trying many things anyway. via `list(map(lambda k: str(k), [12345678, 12345678]))`
<class 'list'> ['12345678', '12345678']

The payload looks like:

{
        'name': 'mydropletname',
        'region': 'sfo2',
        'size': '4gb',
        'image': 'ghost-18-04',
        'ssh_keys': <variations of above>
}

And I’m using the following endpoint: https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/droplets

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traumalligator • May 26, 2019

Accepted Answer

ok, figured it out! the issue is with formatting the params. it has to be like 'ssh_keys[]': [123] instead of 'ssh_keys': [123].

traumalligator • May 25, 2019

following up; it also doesnt appear as if using the SSH key fingerprints matters either. for example replacing the above example’s get_key_ids method with:

def get_key_fingerprints(token):
    """
    Using ssh_key fingerprints because array of ids seems broken on Digital
    Ocean's side?
    """

    request = requests.get('https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/account/keys', headers=headers(token))

    return list(map(lambda key: key['fingerprint'], request.json()['ssh_keys']))

doesnt effect things either.

also! if you do 'ssh_keys': [] it isnt rejected, but any string or number value (whether valid ids/fingerprints or not!) give the exact same error message. is this because Digital Ocean doesnt want to reveal whether or not youre using a proper ID for security purposes???

jarland

DigitalOcean Employee

• February 18, 2019

Hey friend,

You’ll want to get the ID for the SSH key by listing the keys first: https://developers.digitalocean.com/documentation/v2/#list-all-keys

From there just plug it in like this:

"ssh_keys":[19402414],

Here’s a curl string I just ran, with the API key removed, which did the job:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Bearer [removed]" -d '{"name":"example.com","region":"nyc3","size":"s-1vcpu-1gb","image":"ubuntu-16-04-x64","ssh_keys":[19402414],"backups":false,"ipv6":true,"user_data":null,"private_networking":null,"volumes": null,"tags":["web"]}' "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/droplets"

Jarland