I'm having trouble getting public key authentication to work.
I made public/private key pair with puttygen's default parameters.
I set public key authentication to "Required" (and password in "Required" too) in freesshd. The result is that authentication fails even if pass phrase and password are entered correctly. I have a feeling that freesshd does not find my public key. I have also tried an absolute path, for example C:keysmy_public, where my_public is the name of my key file. Any thoughts what goes wrong? Pure password authentication works fine.

Here's step-by-step tutorial how to use public key authentication by using keys created with PuTTYgen.

Step 1
Open freesshd settings and locate "Public key authentication" in
SSH->Authentication. Set it to "Allowed" or "Required", whatever you prefer.

Step 2
On the same option page look for "Path for public keys". This is the folder where you will keep your public keys. Default value is "$HOME\ssh_public_keys". So, when you try to logon, freesshd will search for you public key in "C:\Documents And Settings\Login\ssh_public_keys\". You can select any other folder, just make sure it exists.


Step 3
Generate keys using PuTTYgen. Save your private key wherever you want, but somewhere safe, of course. Now, use a text editor (Notepad will do) to create a file in your public key folder. Copy the OpenSSH public key from PuTTYgen screen and paste it into this new file. Save it with a name same as your login.

Step 4
Now just use PuTTY to connect using your private key. You just select your private key file under Connection->SSH->Auth and that's it.

Hi,
I have been trying for a few evenings and still no luck to make the server to authenticate by public key. I logged in as Administrator to both W2K and my SFTP client ( I wrote it using WeOnlyDo SSTP DLL in VB6). I put the public key at E:mySFTPssh2authorizations with the same name Administrator. I followed the steps described above but no luck. I kept getting "Invalid username or password reported by server". The server log has these lines:
01-31-2005 22:18:48 SSH server started.
01-31-2005 22:19:11 IP 192.168.10.200 SSH connection attempt.
01-31-2005 22:19:11 IP 192.168.10.200 SSH disconnected.

Could someone please help me out here.

Thanks

Tried and successful:

1. SSH (user) public key path: $HOME\ssh_public_keys


2. Use puttygen, get the "Public key for pasting into OpenSSH ..." into clipboard.

3. mkdir C:\Documents and Settings\myusername\ssh_public_keys

4. text edit C:\Documents and Settings\myusername\ssh_public_keys\myusername

5. Paste in and save.

* Replace myusername with Administrator or whatever your username is.

Quote:

---

Tried and successful:

1. SSH (user) public key path: $HOMEssh_public_keys


2. Use puttygen, get the "Public key for pasting into OpenSSH ..." into clipboard.

3. mkdir C:Documents and Settingsmyusernamessh_public_keys

4. text edit C:Documents and Settingsmyusernamessh_public_keysmyusername

5. Paste in and save.

* Replace myusername with Administrator or whatever your username is.

---

text edit C:Documents and Settingsmyusernamessh_public_keys "myusername" I am wondering what is the file type that you use to save the file just ?file? .pub .ppk?

I did all above, and its still complaining when I try to connect localhost "Access denied".


1. In freeSSHd the public key path is: $HOME ssh_public_keys
2. I use puttygen, to get the "Public key for pasting into OpenSSH ..." copy that into clipboard. (If I dont use "save puclic key or private key" putty dosent accept if I make it with notepad it )
3. mkdir C: Documents and Settings Administrator ssh_public_keys
4. Then I use notepad and copy Public key into it and save it C: Documents and Settings Administrator ssh_public_keys "myusername"(let it be "unf")and select File type: All files and File name: unf"." ????? ppk? .pub or just a dot? Please tell what I did wrong.


Sorry for my bad english.

Hmmp.. its working I re-installed freesshd.. something went wrong in first time?

unf.... it says "myusername"... there's no dot, or an extension. If your username is unf then your public key file should be named "unf".

BTW, if your username is 'unf', then your public key should be in "C:\Documents and Settings\Unf\ssh_public_keys", not "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\ssh_public_keys"... it's says that in that little step-by-step tutorial you're referring to.

I've had the same experience as 'unf' in regards to freesshd and the key passphrase. What is strange, however, is when I log in and type the correct passphrase, I get 'Access denied.'. If I type in an incorrect passphrase, I get: 'Wrong passphrase.'. So technically, the passphrase is working, however it won't allow access. Could it have something to do with permissions? I'm stumped.

-Mike

Quote:

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unf.... it says "myusername"... there's no dot, or an extension. If your username is unf then your public key file should be named "unf".

BTW, if your username is 'unf', then your public key should be in "C:\Documents and Settings\Unf\ssh_public_keys", not "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\ssh_public_keys"... it's says that in that little step-by-step tutorial you're referring to.

---

Ah... Finally got it to work. In FreeSSHd, Under 'SSH', Under 'Authentication', Password Authentication has to be set to 'Allowed' and Public key Authentication has to be set to 'Required'.

If both are set to 'Required', I get the 'Access Denied' problem.

Any explanation?


-Mike

Quote:

---

I've had the same experience as 'unf' in regards to freesshd and the key passphrase. What is strange, however, is when I log in and type the correct passphrase, I get 'Access denied.'. If I type in an incorrect passphrase, I get: 'Wrong passphrase.'. So technically, the passphrase is working, however it won't allow access. Could it have something to do with permissions? I'm stumped.

-Mike

[quote]unf.... it says "myusername"... there's no dot, or an extension. If your username is unf then your public key file should be named "unf".

BTW, if your username is 'unf', then your public key should be in "C:\Documents and Settings\Unf\ssh_public_keys", not "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\ssh_public_keys"... it's says that in that little step-by-step tutorial you're referring to.

---

[/quote]

Finally got it working here.

1. windows 2000 server, username 'engineer'
2. installed freesshd, configured authentication to
Password: Disabled
Public Key: Required
3. Created c:Documents and Settingsengineerssh_public_keys
4. create file called 'engineer' with openssh key of the form

ssh-dss Blurb<cut>Blurb Some Comment

Note that there MUST be a comment after the key (separated
by a space) or the key don't work!

5. Apply/Save
6. Test and it works

The problem I had was that I did not have a comment after the key. Putting some arbitrary text in as a comment started things working!

Matthew