Deploy SSH worked first time, but denied on subsequent builds

Deployments
1

For some strange reason, the first time I added my private key to CircleCI SSH permissions, it was able to SSH into my VPS and run a bash script. Subsequent builds, I get permission denied even though I didn’t change the keys.

Here is my config.yml

# Javascript Node CircleCI 2.0 configuration file
#
# Check https://circleci.com/docs/2.0/language-javascript/ for more details
#
version: 2
jobs:
  build:
    docker:
      # specify the version you desire here
      - image: circleci/node:10.6.0

      # Specify service dependencies here if necessary
      # CircleCI maintains a library of pre-built images
      # documented at https://circleci.com/docs/2.0/circleci-images/
      # - image: circleci/mongo:3.4.4

    working_directory: ~/repo

    steps:
      - checkout

      # Download and cache dependencies
      - restore_cache:
          keys:
            - v1-dependencies-{{ checksum "package.json" }}
            # fallback to using the latest cache if no exact match is found
            - v1-dependencies-
      - run:
          name: Creating .npmrc
          command: |
            echo "@fortawesome:registry=https://npm.fontawesome.com/" >> ~/.npmrc
            echo "//npm.fontawesome.com/:_authToken=$FONTAWESOME_TOKEN" >> ~/.npmrc

      - run:
          name: Install npm packages
          command: npm install

      - save_cache:
          paths:
            - node_modules
          key: v1-dependencies-{{ checksum "package.json" }}

      - run:
          name: Build React app
          command: npm run build:$CIRCLE_BRANCH

      - run:
          name: Building artifacts
          command: |
            mkdir /tmp/artifacts
            cp -r /home/circleci/repo/client /tmp/artifacts;
            cp -r /home/circleci/repo/migrations /tmp/artifacts;
            cp -r /home/circleci/repo/server /tmp/artifacts;
            cp /home/circleci/repo/constants.js /tmp/artifacts/constants.js;
            cp /home/circleci/repo/package.json /tmp/artifacts/package.json;
            cp /home/circleci/repo/package-lock.json /tmp/artifacts/package-lock.json;
            tar czf build.tar --directory=/tmp/artifacts ./;

      - store_artifacts:
          path: build.tar
          destination: build
  deploy:
    machine:
      enabled: true
    steps:
      - run:
          name: Deploy to server
          command: ssh $SSH_USER@$SSH_HOST /opt/hire_world/${CIRCLE_BRANCH}/deploy.sh

workflows:
  version: 2
  build-and-deploy:
    jobs:
      - build:
          filters:
            branches:
              only:
                - staging
                - production
              ignore:
                - master
      - deploy:
          requires:
            - build
          filters:
            branches:
              only:
                - staging
                - production
              ignore:
                - master

How I created and added my keys:

In a linux terminal, I created my SSH key using ssh-keygen -m PEM -t rsa -C "your_email@example.com" with my email. I copied the key in id_rsa to my CircleCI settings SSH permissions with the hostname blank. I then copied the key in id_rsa.pub to my VPS’s ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.

When debugging with SSH enabled, I SSH into the box and generated another pair of SSH keys. Copied the public key to my VPS authorized keys, and tried to SSH from the box but also got permission denied.

What I want to do is after my build, upload artifacts, and then SSH into my VPS to download artifact, unpack it, run npm commands (install, migrations, etc.) and restart my node server.

I’m all out of ideas, especially as to why the first time worked but subsequent tries did not. Am I doing something wrong here?

2

What do you get with ssh -vvv?

3

I ruled out that it’s something to do with the authorized_keys file because I cannot SSH from my laptop either.