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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-04T08:19:24+00:00

I am trying to setup an SSH key pairing with dreamhost and my local

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I am trying to setup an SSH key pairing with dreamhost and my local machine. I’m using git bash as my terminal (which uses mingw32)

I can ssh myusername@mysharedserver.com and I’m asked for my password. I have already created RSA keys on both my local and the shared dreamhost server. Here are the steps I take on my git terminal:

$ scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub myusername@mysharedserver.com:~/

$ ssh myusername@mysharedserver.com
myusername@mysharedserver.com's password: *****
$ (ls shows my local's id_rsa.pub in the ~ directory)
$ cd ~/.ssh
$ ls
id_rsa id_rsa.pub key_backup
$ cat ./id_rsa.pub >> authorized_keys (i know I could have just copied)
$ ls
authorized_keys id_rsa id_rsa.pub key_backup

vi authorized_keys shows my local's pubkey

$ chmod go-w ~
$ chmod 700 ~/.ssh
$ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

I then exit the ssh connection and type ssh myusername@mysharedserver.com into my local shell

and I am asked for a password…. what am I doing wrong here?

do I need to setup ssh-agent? when i do, and try ssh-add I get ‘could not open a connection to your authentication agent’

Thanks for any help!

EDIT: Here is a dump of ssh -v

$ ssh -v myusername@mysharedserver.com
OpenSSH_4.6p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8e 23 Feb 2007
debug1: Connecting to mysharedserver.com [xxx.xxx.xxx.xx] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /c/Users/User/.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /c/Users/User/.ssh/id_rsa type 1
debug1: identity file /c/Users/User/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debia
n-5
debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-5 pat OpenSSH*
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_4.6
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: server->client aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none
debug1: kex: client->server aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY
debug1: Host 'mysharedserver.com' is known and matches the RSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /c/Users/User/.ssh/known_hosts:2
debug1: ssh_rsa_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,password
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /c/Users/User/.ssh/identity
debug1: Offering public key: /c/Users/User/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password
debug1: Trying private key: /c/Users/User/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: Next authentication method: password
myusername@mysharedserver.com's password:
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’ve had similar issue recently. Check permissions on server:

    • ~/ (whole home directory) 755 or lower for group & others – this was cause of the issue for me I had 765
    • ~/.ssh 700
    • ~/.ssh/authorized_keys 600

    Update:

    There also can be issue with encryptfs, details here:
    https://serverfault.com/questions/310827/ssh-prompts-for-password-even-though-private-keys-are-available-presented-to-se/310829#310829

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