✅ Help on connection error

[Elfmeterversemmler]

Hi, I just downloaded and installed WebSSH on my iPad and as I have enabled access to my servers only by public key authentication I generated a pair of keys and added the public key to the authroized_keys file of the remote user and copied the private key file to my tablet. Then I added the file by "import from file" to the app and wanted to connect to the remote machine but I am always getting the error "Connection error - unknown private key format".
I have generated the key pair as ssh-ed25519 as well as ssh-rsa with putty where I exported the private key then as OpenSSH key.
I also generated a key pair on the command line with ssh-keygen but that also led to the same error above.
Connection itself is working as I can see messages in the log file on the remote server when not using a key and trying authentication with user/password.
Which format does the key to be in then?
Even enabling logging and setting it to verbose did not shed any light on this.
I also tried to copy and paste the private key by adding it "manually" but even that didn't work - just in case there were some line breaks or so.

[isontheline]

Hello @Elfmeterversemmler 👋

PuTTY v3 keys are not supported yet.

The only workaround is to convert your PPK key to PEM :

• https://www.tbs-certificates.co.uk/FAQ/en/putty-ppk-vers-openssl-openssh.html
• https://www.oracle.com/webfolder/technetwork/tutorials/obe/cloud/ggcs/Change_private_key_format_for_Putty/Change_private_key_format_for_Putty.html

Could you give a try?

Have a nice day ☀️

[Elfmeterversemmler]

Hi @isontheline,

I had converted the PuTTY keys to OpenSSH keys before I added them to webSSH.
I also created a key pair with ssh-keygen on the command line of a Linux machine but that also didn't work.

Cheers,
Torsten

[isontheline]

Hi @Elfmeterversemmler

It should work : #414 (reply in thread)

Please post your errors from /var/log/auth

[Elfmeterversemmler]

Hi @isontheline,

I created a key pair as described in #414 before but I probably did not add the public key to the remote server as it seems 🤔
I just redid the creation of the key pair and now it works 🤷‍♂️
Anyway, thank you for your assistance and the good app 👍

Cheers,
Torsten

[isontheline]

Hi @Elfmeterversemmler 👋

Great! Thank you a lot for your feedback 🙏

Have a nice day ☀️