Cannot SSH into remote server using private key, even though I can locally with same private key

Deployments
1

I cannot SSH into my Digital Ocean droplet with the SSH key, even though I can authenticate locally with the same private SSH key.

I created a deploy key specifically for CircleCI, copied the public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, then added the SSH private to CircleCI under my project.

YES, my .circleci/config.yaml file has the associated fingerprint. I SSH’d into the CircleCI box and this is what I get for ssh -v root@XX.XX:

OpenSSH_6.6.1, OpenSSL 1.0.1f 6 Jan 2014
debug1: Reading configuration data /home/circleci/.ssh/config
debug1: /home/circleci/.ssh/config line 1: Applying options for XX.XX
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 1: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to XX.XX [XX.XX] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /home/circleci/.ssh/id_rsa_c63936e60f431fa4f625622a3cecab52 type -1
debug1: identity file /home/circleci/.ssh/id_rsa_c63936e60f431fa4f625622a3cecab52-cert type -1
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_6.6.1p1 Ubuntu-2ubuntu2.8
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_7.4
debug1: match: OpenSSH_7.4 pat OpenSSH* compat 0x04000000
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-sha1-etm@openssh.com none
debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-sha1-etm@openssh.com none
debug1: sending SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_INIT
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_REPLY
debug1: Server host key: ECDSA 0e:ff:ed:02:d9:86:4c:ae:89:f7:79:38:a9:4c:b6:b4
debug1: Host ‘XX.XX’ is known and matches the ECDSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /home/circleci/.ssh/known_hosts:5
debug1: ssh_ecdsa_verify: signature correct
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /home/circleci/.ssh/id_rsa_c63936e60f431fa4f625622a3cecab52
debug1: key_parse_private2: missing begin marker
debug1: read PEM private key done: type RSA
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic
debug1: No more authentication methods to try.
Permission denied (publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic).

My /etc/ssh/sshd_config file on the server:

#	$OpenBSD: sshd_config,v 1.100 2016/08/15 12:32:04 naddy Exp $

# This is the sshd server system-wide configuration file.  See
# sshd_config(5) for more information.

# This sshd was compiled with PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin

# The strategy used for options in the default sshd_config shipped with
# OpenSSH is to specify options with their default value where
# possible, but leave them commented.  Uncommented options override the
# default value.

# If you want to change the port on a SELinux system, you have to tell
# SELinux about this change.
# semanage port -a -t ssh_port_t -p tcp #PORTNUMBER
#
#Port 22
#AddressFamily any
#ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
#ListenAddress ::

HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
#HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key

# Ciphers and keying
#RekeyLimit default none

# Logging
#SyslogFacility AUTH
SyslogFacility AUTHPRIV
#LogLevel INFO

# Authentication:

#LoginGraceTime 2m
PermitRootLogin without-password
#StrictModes yes
#MaxAuthTries 6
#MaxSessions 10

PubkeyAuthentication yes

# The default is to check both .ssh/authorized_keys and .ssh/authorized_keys2
# but this is overridden so installations will only check .ssh/authorized_keys
AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys

#AuthorizedPrincipalsFile none

#AuthorizedKeysCommand none
#AuthorizedKeysCommandUser nobody

# For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts
#HostbasedAuthentication no
# Change to yes if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for
# HostbasedAuthentication
#IgnoreUserKnownHosts no
# Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files
#IgnoreRhosts yes

# To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
#PasswordAuthentication yes
#PermitEmptyPasswords no
PasswordAuthentication no

# Change to no to disable s/key passwords
#ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no

# Kerberos options
#KerberosAuthentication no
#KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes
#KerberosTicketCleanup yes
#KerberosGetAFSToken no
#KerberosUseKuserok yes

# GSSAPI options
GSSAPIAuthentication yes
GSSAPICleanupCredentials no
#GSSAPIStrictAcceptorCheck yes
#GSSAPIKeyExchange no
#GSSAPIEnablek5users no

# Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing,
# and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will
# be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication and
# PasswordAuthentication.  Depending on your PAM configuration,
# PAM authentication via ChallengeResponseAuthentication may bypass
# the setting of "PermitRootLogin without-password".
# If you just want the PAM account and session checks to run without
# PAM authentication, then enable this but set PasswordAuthentication
# and ChallengeResponseAuthentication to 'no'.
# WARNING: 'UsePAM no' is not supported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and may cause several
# problems.
UsePAM yes

#AllowAgentForwarding yes
#AllowTcpForwarding yes
#GatewayPorts no
X11Forwarding yes
#X11DisplayOffset 10
#X11UseLocalhost yes
#PermitTTY yes
#PrintMotd yes
#PrintLastLog yes
#TCPKeepAlive yes
#UseLogin no
#UsePrivilegeSeparation sandbox
#PermitUserEnvironment no
#Compression delayed
#ClientAliveInterval 0
#ClientAliveCountMax 3
#ShowPatchLevel no
#UseDNS yes
#PidFile /var/run/sshd.pid
#MaxStartups 10:30:100
#PermitTunnel no
#ChrootDirectory none
#VersionAddendum none

# no default banner path
#Banner none

# Accept locale-related environment variables
AcceptEnv LANG LC_CTYPE LC_NUMERIC LC_TIME LC_COLLATE LC_MONETARY LC_MESSAGES
AcceptEnv LC_PAPER LC_NAME LC_ADDRESS LC_TELEPHONE LC_MEASUREMENT
AcceptEnv LC_IDENTIFICATION LC_ALL LANGUAGE
AcceptEnv XMODIFIERS

# override default of no subsystems
Subsystem sftp	/usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server

# Example of overriding settings on a per-user basis
#Match User anoncvs
#	X11Forwarding no
#	AllowTcpForwarding no
#	PermitTTY no
#	ForceCommand cvs server

The server is running on CentOS 7.5, if that helps.

1 Like
2

There’s two issues to dig into:

  • key_parse_private2: missing begin marker
  • Permission denied (publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic).

I’d do a search for these two and see how it could pertain to this key.

Are you using add_ssh_keys to publish the key? What command did you use to generate your key pair? You could also invalidate it (remove it from your server) and then show us the key, so we can see if there is any issue with it.

In case it is useful, here are my notes on generating/deploying keys.

1 Like
3

I generated the key on my remote server with ssh-keygen -t rsa and copied it to authorized keys with this command: cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa_deploy.pub >> authorized_keys

I read that the key_parse_private2: missing begin marker error doesn’t say much: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41888650/what-does-the-error-missing-begin-marker-mean

And yes, my yaml file has add_ssh_keys

1 Like
4

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