Mac Terminal Keeps Asking for Password When Using PPK with SSH

macos terminal amazon-web-services private-key
Chris picture Chris · Feb 21, 2012 · Viewed 33.5k times · Source

I am attempting to connect to an Amazon EC2 Server via Mac Terminal. I have a PPK file that does not have a password attached to it, but when I try to connect I get a popup box that says "Enter the password for the SSH Private Key."

So we tried creating a PPK that has a password - but it does not accept the password, it still rejects the connection.

I have a Windows user who is able to connect using the same PPK on Putty.

Has anyone experienced this issue?

Answer

bwight picture bwight · Feb 23, 2012

The mac is looking for a .pem key. The ppk is generated specifically for putty. If you don't have the original ppk key.

Download puttygen.exe from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html Then go to conversions -> export OpenSSH key. Save the output as a .pem file and try using that with the mac.

If this doesn't work can you post the command you're running from mac. Its possible you've got some extra parameter or something.

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