Re: Issues with SSH pubkey authentication at remote server

[Stephan Beck <sbeck@secure.mailbox.org>]

Hi Dan,

Dan Purgert:
> Stephan Beck wrote:
>> Dan Purgert:
>>> Mark Fletcher wrote:
>>>> If I'm reading the above right, it looks like the server is offering an
>>>> rsa key to authenticate itself, but won't accept rsa to authenticate the
>>>> client. Which is a bit cheeky.
>>>
>>>> You may need a key created with a stronger method, such as ecdsa or
>>>> ed25519.
>>>
>>> Could even be as simple as he sent a /different/ key across (e.g. he
>>> sent "home-key.pub", which corresponds to "home-key_rsa" rather than
>>> "id_rsa").
>>>
>> No. I wrote that I /checked/ the public key copied to the server after
>> having copied it to the server's ~/.ssh directory. I edited it with a
>> text editor and compared it with the one I have in local ~/.ssh
> 
> 
> I think you misunderstood what I was saying.  I was supposing that you
> copied a valid (yet "incorrect") key to the remote server, or tried to
> authenticate with the wrong private key.

It was the correct and valid public key. It seems that the agent
actually is authenticating with the wrong private key. But, fair to say,
that's something you didn't mention in your first message.
> 
> For example, I have in my user's .ssh/ directory:
> 
> id_rsa -> symlink to home_lan_rsa
> VPS_id_rsa -> private key for uploading to a VPS
> home_lan_rsa -> private key for use on my LAN.
> 
> Assuming that I copied the right public key to the VPS, if I run the
> command "ssh me@vps", it'll fail, because ssh by default tries to
> authenticate with "id_rsa". _FIX:_ change the ssh command to "ssh -i
> .ssh/VPS_id_rsa me@vps"

Well, I only have one single pubkey on this local user "ssh" account I'm
talking about.

Cheers
Stephan