Troubleshooting a SSH connection failing on Windows OS
Journey: 📊 Community Builder 📊
Subject matter: 💡 Troubleshooting 💡
Task: Troubleshooting a SSH connection failing on Windows OS
While working on a build utilising both Terraform and Ansible, linked here, I found I was unable to establish my SSH session within my VSCode platform. The following steps are how I solved the issue.
Problem observed:
When attempting to ssh to my new Ubuntu EC2 Instance, I encountered this error:
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE! @ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Permissions for ‘ansible-ssh-key.pem’ are too open. It is required that your private key files are NOT accessible by others. This private key will be ignored. Load key “ansible-ssh-key.pem”: bad permissions ubuntu@ec2-54-162-75-71.compute-1.amazonaws.com: Permission denied (publickey).
Click to expand:
If using Linix, I could have run a command: ‘chmod 400 ansible-ssh-key.pem’ to amend the file, however as I am using VSCode on Windows OS, I needed an alternative solution.
Investigations:
After some searching online, I found the following page here.
Fix required:
The following steps are how I changed the file to ensure it met the conditions needed:
- Open PowerShell as Administrator
- Change directory to your .pem file
- Run commands:
- icacls.exe <key_name>.pem /reset
- icacls.exe <key_name>.pem /grant:r “$($env:username):(r)”
- icacls.exe <key_name>.pem /inheritance:r
Click to expand:
Then attempt the connection: ssh -i <key_pair>.pem < user>@< hostname >
Connection success:
Click to expand:
If this post helps just one other person, it has served its purpose well!
