SSH Key: “Permissions 0644 for 'id_rsa.pub' are too open.” on mac

I suggest you to do:

chmod 400 ~/.ssh/id_rsa

It works fine for me.

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debug1: identity file /Users/tudouya/.ssh/vm/vm_id_rsa.pub type 1

It appears that you're trying to use the wrong key file. The file with the ".pub" extension contains the public portion of the key. The corresponding file without the ".pub" extension contains the private part of the key. When you run an ssh client to connect to a remote server, you have to provide the private key file to the ssh client.

You probably have a line in the your .ssh/config file (or /etc/ssh_config) which looks like this:

IdentityFile .../.ssh/vm/vm_id_rsa.pub

You need to remove the ".pub" extension from the filename:

IdentityFile .../.ssh/vm/vm_id_rsa

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Key should be readable by the logged in user.

Try this:

chmod 400 ~/.ssh/Key file
chmod 400 ~/.ssh/vm_id_rsa.pub

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chmod 400 path/to/filename

This work for me. When I did this file I am able to connect to my EC2 instance

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After running below command it works for me

sudo chmod 600 /path/to/my/key.pem

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change your KEY permission to

chmod 400 your_key.pem

It should work !

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In my case, it was a .pem file. Turns out holds good for that too. Changed permissions of the file and it worked.

chmod 400 ~/.ssh/dev-shared.pem

Thanks for all of those who helped above.

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SSH keys are meant to be private so a 644 permission is too open.

Binary references to set Permissions

 r(read) = 4
 w(write) = 2
 x(execute) = 1

So by adding these numbers and by passing the summed digit to chmod command,We set the permission of file/directory. The first digit sets permission for the owner, second digit for group and the third one for all other users on the system who have no right to the file.

A permission of 644 means 
(4+2) = read/write permission for the owner
(4) = read permission for the group 
(4) = read permission for all other users 
 

By changing the the permission of the file to 400 using

chmod 400 <filename>

solves the issue. As it makes the key read-only accessible to the owner.

Ref: https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/understanding-linux-file-permissions/

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If the keys are in the ~/.ssh directory , use

chmod 400 ~/.ssh/id_rsa

If the keys are in different directory, use

chmod 400 directory_path/id_rsa

This worked for me.

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Lot's of similar answers but no explanations...

The error is thrown because the private key file permissions are too open. It is a security risk.

Change the permissions on the private key file to be minimal (read only by owner)

Change owner chown Set minimal permissions (read only to file owner) chmod 400

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chmod 600 id_rsa

Run above command from path where key is stored in vm ex: cd /home/opc/.ssh

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I have similar issue and solved it by changing the permission of the respective files and folder worked for me.

This is the solution which is worked for me:

$ chmod 0600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
$ chmod 0600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
$ chmod 0600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
$ chmod 0700 ~/.ssh

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As for me, the default mode of id_rsa is 600, which means readable and writable.

After I push this file to a git repo and pull it from another pc, sometimes the mode of the private key file becomes -rw-r--r--.

When I pull the repo with ssh after specify the private key file, it failed and prompted warnings the same with you. Following is my script.

ssh-agent bash -c "ssh-add $PATH_OF_RSA/id_rsa; \
git pull git@gitee.com:someone/somerepo.git "

I fix this problem just by changing the mode to 600.

chmod 600 $PATH_TO_RSA/id_rsa

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You have to run the command bellow

chmod 400 /path/to/my/key.pem

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giving permision 400 makes the key private and not accessible by someone unknown. It makes the key as a protected one.

chmod 400 /Users/tudouya/.ssh/vm/vm_id_rsa.pub

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Just run below to your pem's

sudo chmod 600 /path/to/my/key.pem 

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If youre using a .ssh/config file try to

chmod 0400 .ssh/config

then:

chmod 0400 .ssh/<<KEYFILE_PATH>>

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This should do the trick:

chmod 600 id_rsa

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chmod 400 /etc/ssh/* works for me.

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Those who suggested chmod 400 id_rsa.pub did not sound right at all. It was quite possible that op used pub key instead of private key to ssh.

So it might be as simple as ssh -i /Users/tudouya/.ssh/vm/vm_id_rsa (the private key) user@host to fix it.

--- update ---

Check this article https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-ssh-keys--2 for how to set up ssh key

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In my case if found out that, this file wasn't actually the one I needed, because apparently the command I used to create the ssh key ssh-keygen -t rsa

created the key for me in the file directory I was working, with the name I used.

So check your hidden files in the directory you were working you might just see the ssh and the ssh.pub

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I had this issue with a macbook m1, I later realized that i was missing sudo from the connection script

sudo ssh -i "key.pem" ubuntu@IP_Address

Ensure you are not missing the sudo in your connection script if you are using a macbook.

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There has been a lot of great explanation above, so I recommend reading and understanding.

Here is my simple step by step solution:

On your terminal, run: open ~/.ssh/config In your file, you will see something similar to this (in my personal case):

Host *
  IgnoreUnknown UseKeychain
  AddKeysToAgent yes
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

or like this (as per the example in this question).

Hostname 10.211.55.17
    PreferredAuthentications publickey
    IdentityFile /Users/tudouya/.ssh/vm/vm_id_rsa.pub

Remove the ".pub" extention from the last line, which should look like:

Hostname 10.211.55.17
    PreferredAuthentications publickey
    IdentityFile /Users/tudouya/.ssh/vm/vm_id_rsa

or in my case:

Host *
  IgnoreUnknown UseKeychain
  AddKeysToAgent yes
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Save the file and test your ssh connection.

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I removed the .pub file, and it worked.

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