Can't Clone GitHub Repo using SSH

Question

I'm trying to clone a private github repo through ssh.

I've generate pair keys with keygen that are stored in .ssh, inside a non-root user home directory.

/home/nonroot/.ssh

However, when I try:

git clone [email protected]:user/repo.git

I get:

Cloning into 'discord-bot'...
[email protected]: Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

Following this, I've tried:

ssh -T [email protected]

And got:

bash: /usr/bin/ssh: Permission denied

What should I do?

Running Ubuntu 20.04

dan1st · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-02 17:38:46Z

2

bash: /usr/bin/ssh: Permission denied

means that you try to execute /usr/bin/ssh but you don't have the execute permission on the ssh program.

In order to fix this, run the following command:

chmod +x /usr/bin/ssh

That adds the execute permission to the ssh executable.

Also make sure that you have uploaded your public key to GitHub.

The second error is also a permission problem:

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE! @ Permissions 0644 for '/home/nonroot/.ssh/id_rsa.pub' are too open. It is required that your private key files are NOT accessible by others. This private key will be ignored.

This means that other people on your machine have the permission to view your private key.

This issue can be fixed using chmod -R 700 ~/.ssh.

This command changes the permissions of the .ssh directory do that nobody else can access it.

edited Feb 2, 2021 at 17:38

answered Feb 2, 2021 at 17:30

dan1st

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5 Comments

2-D Over a year ago

This fixed the ssh permission denied problem. However, now when I try to clone something on my github I get

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @         WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE!          @  Permissions 0644 for '/home/nonroot/.ssh/id_rsa.pub' are too open. It is required that your private key files are NOT accessible by others. This private key will be ignored.

2-D Over a year ago

After chmod -R 700 ~/.ssh I get the following error:

Load key "/home/nonroot/.ssh/id_rsa.pub": invalid format [email protected]: Permission denied (publickey). fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

2-D Over a year ago

Yes. I have no idea why cloning doesn't work. I've already added id_rsa.pub to GitHub SSH keys

dan1st Over a year ago

docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/…

2-D Over a year ago

Got it, thanks a lot. The final issue was: keys were not known by ssh-agent. Running ssh-add .ssh/id_rsa fixed it.

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