How to solve Permission denied (publickey) error when using Git?

git ssh ssh-keys public-key
teepusink picture teepusink · Apr 15, 2010 · Viewed 1.1M times · Source

I'm on Mac Snow Leopard and I just installed git.

I just tried 

git clone [email protected]:cakebook.git

but that gives me this error:

Initialized empty Git repository in `/Users/username/Documents/cakebook/.git/`
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

What am I missing?
I've also tried doing ssh-keygen with no passphase but still same error.

Answer

Rufinus picture Rufinus · Apr 15, 2010

If the user has not generated a ssh public/private key pair set before

This info is working on theChaw but can be applied to all other git repositories which support SSH pubkey authentications. (See gitolite, gitlab or github for example.)

First start by setting up your own public/private key pair set. This can use either DSA or RSA, so basically any key you setup will work. On most systems you can use ssh-keygen.

  • First you'll want to cd into your .ssh directory. Open up the terminal and run:

    cd ~/.ssh && ssh-keygen

  • Next you need to copy this to your clipboard.
    • On OS X run: cat id_rsa.pub | pbcopy
    • On Linux run: cat id_rsa.pub | xclip
    • On Windows (via Cygwin/Git Bash) run: cat id_rsa.pub | clip
  • Add your key to your account via the website.
  • Finally setup your .gitconfig.
    • git config --global user.name "bob"
    • git config --global user.email bob@... (don't forget to restart your command line to make sure the config is reloaded)

That's it you should be good to clone and checkout.

Further information can be found at https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys (thanks to @Lee Whitney) -

If the user has generated a ssh public/private key pair set before

  • check which key have been authorized on your github or gitlab account settings
  • determine which corresponding private key must be associated from your local computer

eval $(ssh-agent -s)

  • define where the keys are located

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

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