Hi all

I am trying to add a private key using ssh-add. this is the error I get:

root@localhost nigel]# ssh-add .ssh/identity/ssh_private_key.ppk
Enter passphrase for .ssh/identity/ssh_private_key.ppk:
Bad passphrase, try again for .ssh/identity/ssh_private_key.ppk:
Bad passphrase, try again for .ssh/identity/ssh_private_key.ppk:
[root@localhost nigel]#

as you can see the .ppk file has a passphrase which is rejected.

I have copied the private key.ppk file over my network from windows.
the key file and the passphrase works fine using pagent and putty in windows.

can anyone please tell me what is going wrong.

Thanks

What happens if you try as a user other than root? I'm not sure but I believe that root by default is not allowed to ssh. One way to check is to look at the /etc/ssh/sshd_config and look for the line with "PermitRootLogin" in it. These paths are relative to a FC3 install. It may be in a different location on your server.

The .ppk format sounds like it was generated by puttygen. Have you tried exporting the key in openssh format from puttygen? This wasn't necessary with ssh-1, but is with ssh-2 according to putty's help docs.

Thanks so much to both of you. Both of you pointed me in the right direction.

firstly I exported the .ppk file from windows as on openssh file, and implemented ssh-add as a normal user ( me ).

There was also a permissions issue ssh complained the key was to open so after changing the file permissions to lock it down every thing worked

thanks again guys