Git SSH public key denied

Question

I'm using Bitbucket, and I've setup SSH on Git as instructed for Linux in Atlassian's documentation (Ubuntu 13.04)

When I try to clone any project from my Bitbucket account though, I get a public key denied error.

omk@home-pc:/var/www/git$ sudo git clone [email protected]:MyAccount/MyProject.git
Cloning into 'MyProject'...
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

I have added the public key to my Bitbucket account.

When I try ssh -T [email protected], only then does the terminal prompt me to enter my passphrase, and I get my account name as response.

omk@home-pc:/var/www/git$ ssh -T [email protected]
logged in as MyUsername.

You can use git or hg to connect to Bitbucket. Shell access is disabled.

Cloning at $HOME works fine. The issue is with having to use sudo at /var/www/git. Is there any way I should change the permissions to avoid using sudo?

Am I missing something?

Lipp

Is it possible to clone into your home directory without using sudo? – Caraviello

Nope. Gives me this - fatal: could not create work tree dir 'easydial'.: Permission denied – Lipp

Did you try to clone to $HOME, or /var/www/git? (you probably have permission to write to the first, but not to the last.) – Caraviello

Cloning at $HOME works. Any way I can set permissions to /var/www/git to not use sudo? – Lipp

Answer 1

Use ssh-add $keyfile to add your private key to the agent.

Then use ssh-add -L to display the public key for that key. - Verify it matches the one added to your bitbucket account.

Now trying to ssh to bitbucket should result login via key, i.e. no password is needed.

Also git clone over ssh should work now.

Using sudo is probably no good idea. It will most certainly both cut the connection to your agent and change $HOME/.ssh, hence a ssh started by sudo will not be able to use your key. You can use sudo -E to preserve your environment. In this case the key should still work.

Caraviello

Still the same error. But I see 2 keys on ssh-add -L now. The same key basically. One ends with /home/omk/.ssh/id_rsa and the other with omk@home-pc. – Lipp

Any way I could avoid using sudo. I am sensing that is the issue. – Lipp

Just found. Using clone on $HOME works fine. Any way I can change the permissions for /var/www/ – Lipp

Either use chown on /var/www/git, or use sudo -E. - Depending on, what you are planning to do with the repository. – Caraviello

Did a cd ; sudo cp .ssh/id_* /root/.ssh/ to move my keys to root. Worked! Thanks :) – Lipp

When I run: ssh-add -L, it lists multiple keys. How which one should I be verifying with BitBucket?? – Dumpish

If your agent knows about multiple keys, you can use any of them. Maybe you should find out where the second key comes from. Probably your desktop environment added a key from ~/.ssh/. – Caraviello

You saved my life, thank you! -E option made my day. – Voracious

Answer 2

Add yourself to the group that has access to /var/www/git.

Bywaters

Answer 3

I had similar problem and I solved like that: First, I enabled passwd auth then added public key and then disables passwd auth again. I know this is not exactly your problem but I wanted to share my experience.

Normalie

Chill :) Just wanted to tell my story. – Normalie

Please see: How to write good answer? – Hedgehog