key_load_public: invalid format
GitGithubSshPublic KeyGit Problem Overview
I used PuTTY Key Generator to generate a 4096 bit RSA-2 key with a passphrase.
I save the .ppk and an openSSL format public key. The putty format public key doesn't work.
In any case, my error is as follows:
$ ssh -T [email protected]
key_load_public: invalid format
Enter passphrase for key '/c/Users/Dan/.ssh/id_rsa':
Hi Dan! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.
What's the issue?
I use Pageant to load the keys and i use Git Bash to try the ssh connection. I've also loaded the key into GitHub, not sure what i'm doing wrong.
I've tried adding a new line and not adding a new line in GitHub
Git Solutions
Solution 1 - Git
As Roland mentioned in their answer, it's a warning that the ssh-agent
doesn't understand the format of the public key and even then, the public key will not be used locally.
However, I can also elaborate and answer why the warning is there. It simply boils down to the fact that the PuTTY Key Generator generates two different public key formats depending on what you do in the program.
Note: Throughout my explanation, the key files I will be using/generating will be named id_rsa
with their appropriate extensions. Furthermore, for copy-paste convenience, the parent folder of the keys will be assumed to be ~/.ssh/
. Adjust these details to suit your needs as desired.
The Formats
Link to the relevant PuTTY documentation
SSH-2
When you save a key using the PuTTY Key Generator using the "Save public key" button, it will be saved in the format defined by RFC 4716.
Example:
---- BEGIN SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----
Comment: "github-example-key"
AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEAhl/CNy9wI1GVdiHAJQV0CkHnMEqW7+Si9WYF
i2fSBrsGcmqeb5EwgnhmTcPgtM5ptGBjUZR84nxjZ8SPmnLDiDyHDPIsmwLBHxcp
pY0fhRSGtWL5fT8DGm9EfXaO1QN8c31VU/IkD8niWA6NmHNE1qEqpph3DznVzIm3
oMrongEjGw7sDP48ZTZp2saYVAKEEuGC1YYcQ1g20yESzo7aP70ZeHmQqI9nTyEA
ip3mL20+qHNsHfW8hJAchaUN8CwNQABJaOozYijiIUgdbtSTMRDYPi7fjhgB3bA9
tBjh7cOyuU/c4M4D6o2mAVYdLAWMBkSoLG8Oel6TCcfpO/nElw==
---- END SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----
OpenSSH
Contrary to popular belief, this format doesn't get saved by the generator. However it is generated and shown in the text box titled "Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file". To save it as a file, you have to manually copy it from the text box and paste it into a new text file.
For the key shown above, this would be:
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEAhl/CNy9wI1GVdiHAJQV0CkHnMEqW7+Si9WYFi2fSBrsGcmqeb5EwgnhmTcPgtM5ptGBjUZR84nxjZ8SPmnLDiDyHDPIsmwLBHxcppY0fhRSGtWL5fT8DGm9EfXaO1QN8c31VU/IkD8niWA6NmHNE1qEqpph3DznVzIm3oMrongEjGw7sDP48ZTZp2saYVAKEEuGC1YYcQ1g20yESzo7aP70ZeHmQqI9nTyEAip3mL20+qHNsHfW8hJAchaUN8CwNQABJaOozYijiIUgdbtSTMRDYPi7fjhgB3bA9tBjh7cOyuU/c4M4D6o2mAVYdLAWMBkSoLG8Oel6TCcfpO/nElw== github-example-key
The format of the key is simply ssh-rsa <signature> <comment>
and can be created by rearranging the SSH-2 formatted file.
Regenerating Public Keys
If you are making use of ssh-agent
, you will likely also have access to ssh-keygen
.
If you have your OpenSSH Private Key (id_rsa
file), you can generate the OpenSSH Public Key File using:
ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa -y > ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
If you only have the PUTTY Private Key (id_rsa.ppk
file), you will need to convert it first.
- Open the PuTTY Key Generator
- On the menu bar, click "File" > "Load private key"
- Select your
id_rsa.ppk
file - On the menu bar, click "Conversions" > "Export OpenSSH key"
- Save the file as
id_rsa
(without an extension)
Now that you have an OpenSSH Private Key, you can use the ssh-keygen
tool as above to perform manipulations on the key.
Bonus: The PKCS#1 PEM-encoded Public Key Format
To be honest, I don't know what this key is used for as I haven't needed it. But I have it in my notes I've collated over the years and I'll include it here for wholesome goodness. The file will look like this:
-----BEGIN RSA PUBLIC KEY-----
MIIBCAKCAQEAhl/CNy9wI1GVdiHAJQV0CkHnMEqW7+Si9WYFi2fSBrsGcmqeb5Ew
gnhmTcPgtM5ptGBjUZR84nxjZ8SPmnLDiDyHDPIsmwLBHxcppY0fhRSGtWL5fT8D
Gm9EfXaO1QN8c31VU/IkD8niWA6NmHNE1qEqpph3DznVzIm3oMrongEjGw7sDP48
ZTZp2saYVAKEEuGC1YYcQ1g20yESzo7aP70ZeHmQqI9nTyEAip3mL20+qHNsHfW8
hJAchaUN8CwNQABJaOozYijiIUgdbtSTMRDYPi7fjhgB3bA9tBjh7cOyuU/c4M4D
6o2mAVYdLAWMBkSoLG8Oel6TCcfpO/nElwIBJQ==
-----END RSA PUBLIC KEY-----
This file can be generated using an OpenSSH Private Key (as generated in "Regenerating Public Keys" above) using:
ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa -y -e -m pem > ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pem
Alternatively, you can use an OpenSSH Public Key using:
ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub -e -m pem > ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pem
##References:##
Solution 2 - Git
There is a simple solution if you can install and use puttygen tool. Below are the steps. You should have the passphrase of the private key.
step 1: Download latest puttygen and open puttygen
step 2: Load your existing private key file, see below image
step 3: Enter passphrase for key if asked and hit ok
step 4: as shown in the below image select "conversion" menu tab and select "Export OpenSSH key"
Save new private key file at preferred location and use accordingly.
Solution 3 - Git
TL;DR: also ensure that your id_rsa.pub
is in ascii / UTF-8.
I had the same problem, however the accepted answer alone did not work because of the text encoding, which was an additional, easy-to-miss issue.
When I run
ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa -y > ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
in Windows PowerShell, it saves the output to id_rsa.pub
in UTF-16 LE BOM encoding, not in UTF-8. This is a property of some installations of PowerShell, which was discussed in Using PowerShell to write a file in UTF-8 without the BOM. Apparently, OpenSSH does not recognise the former text encoding and produces an identical error:
key_load_public: invalid format
Copying and pasting the output of ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa -y
into a text editor is the simplest way to solve this.
P.S. This could be an addition to the accepted answer, but I don't have enough karma to comment here yet.
Solution 4 - Git
In the case you copy your public key with clipboard and paste it, it may happen the public key string can be broken which contains new-line.
Make sure your public key string formed as one line.
Solution 5 - Git
It seems that ssh
cannot read your public key. But that doesn't matter.
You upload your public key to github, but you authenticate using your private key. See e.g. the FILES section in ssh(1)
.
Solution 6 - Git
Generate id_rsa and id_rsa.pub files using the below command :
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"
Then :
1) Place file in id_rsa.pub into ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
2) sudo chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
3) Place file id_rsa into ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Now ~/.ssh contains two files..~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub and ~/.ssh/id_rsa
4) ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
5) Enter the passphrase entered during creation of id_rsa
Output :
Identity added: /home/jay/.ssh/id_rsa (/home/jay/.ssh/id_rsa)
Now you can push pull without entering username password
Solution 7 - Git
The error is misleading - it says "pubkey
" while pointing to a private key file ~/.ssh/id_rsa
.
In my case, it was simply a missing public key (as I haven't restored it from a vault).
DETAILS
I used to skip deploying ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
by automated scripts.
All ssh
usages worked, but the error made me think of a possible mess.
Not at all - strace
helped to notice that the trigger was actually the *.pub
file:
strace ssh example.com
...
openat(AT_FDCWD, "/home/uvsmtid/.ssh/id_rsa.pub", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
...
write(2, "load pubkey \"/home/uvsmtid/.ssh/"..., 57) = 57
load pubkey "/home/uvsmtid/.ssh/id_rsa": invalid format
Solution 8 - Git
Instead of directly saving the private key Go to Conversions and Export SSh Key. Had the same issue and this worked for me
Solution 9 - Git
I had the same warning. It was a very old key. I regenerated a key on the current OpenSSH 7, and the error was gone.
Solution 10 - Git
If you're using Windows 10 with the built-in SSH, as of August 2020 it only supports ed25519 keys. You'll get the key_load_public: invalid format
error if you use e.g. an RSA key.
As per this GitHub issue it should be fixed via Windows Update some time in 2020. So one solution is to just wait for the update to ship.
If you can't wait, a workaround is to generate a new ed25519 key, which is good advice anyway.
> ssh-keygen -o -a 100 -t ed25519
You can use it with e.g. github, but some older systems might not support this newer format.
After generating your key, if you're using either of the below features, don't forget to update them!
~\.ssh\config
might still point to the old key.- Add the new key to ssh-agent via the
ssh-add
command
Solution 11 - Git
Adding SSH-KEY in Git-hub: Windows
Type this in cmd: ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your-email-id"
Go to C:\Users\your-name\.ssh
There you will get a file: id_ed25519.pub
open that file , copy that , go to github->setting->keys->ssh-key->new SSH Key
There paste your copied key
Done!!
Solution 12 - Git
So, after update I had the same issue. I was using PEM key_file
without extension and simply adding .pem
fixed my issue. Now the file is key_file.pem
.
Solution 13 - Git
@uvsmtid Your post finally lead me into the right direction
:
simply deleting (actually renaming) the public key file id_rsa.pub
solved the problem for me, that git was working though nagging about invalid format.
Not quite sure, yet the file is not actually needed, since the pub key can be extracted from private key file id_rsa
anyway.
Solution 14 - Git
I had a similar error Load key "/root/.ssh/id_rsa": invalid format
when I tried
RUN echo "$ssh_prv_key" > /root/.ssh/id_rsa && chmod 600 /root/.ssh/id_rsa
This led to errors like identity file /root/.ssh/id_rsa type -1 invalid format
and read_passphrase: can't open /dev/tty
.
The right way would be to use
COPY id_rsa /root/.ssh/id_rsa
RUN chmod 600 /root/.ssh/id_rsa
The solution explained: my private key was wrongly formatted - instead of many lines, it was passed as a one-liner, and you might have any other format issue like a forgotten "-" at the start or end, or something wrong at the end of the lines, like a missing newline format or an additional letter at the end of a line.
See Dockerfile: clone repo with passwordless private key. Errors: “authentication agent” or “read_passphrase: can't open /dev/tty” for more details, with the main idea from Add private key to ssh-agent in docker file, which again had the idea from Gitlab CI/Docker: ssh-add keeps asking for passphrase.