[Hidden-tech] Broken public keys

[R. David Murray]

Oh, duh, I didn't read carefully enough.  The my_id.pub file is your
*public* key, that's the thing you publish in plaintext.  my_id (no
extension) is the private key you need the passphrase to access.
Might be nice if ssh-keygen would recognize the content of the file
as a public key and give you a better error message, but obviously
it doesn't.

--David

On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 20:36:17 -0400, GLP <glp at gregperham.com> wrote:
> Have already done that. And tried with and without a passphrase at all.
> 
> 
> > On Jul 29, 2016, at 8:32 PM, R. David Murray <rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote:
> > 
> > On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 17:03:15 -0400, GLP <glp at gregperham.com> wrote:
> >> The keys I generate on my Mac are unusable. I always get, "incorrect passphrase supplied to decrypt private key." This happens whether or not I generate them with a passphrase. This is the process I use:
> >> 
> >> ssh-keygen -t rsa -N mypassphrase -f my_id
> >> Generating public/private rsa key pair.
> >> Your identification has been saved in my_id.
> >> Your public key has been saved in my_id.pub.
> >> The key fingerprint is: etc etc
> >> 
> >> Then to verify:
> >> 
> >> ssh-keygen -y -f my_id.pub
> >> Enter passphrase: mypassphrase
> >> Load key "my_id.pub": incorrect passphrase supplied to decrypt private key
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Anyone have any idea what's wrong?
> > 
> > Maybe the shell is interpreting some of the characters you are putting
> > in the passphrase?  Try not using -N and just typing the passphrase
> > at the prompt when creating the key.  That's better practice anyway.
> > If you really need to put it on the command line, surround it with
> > single quotes: -N 'mypassphrase'.
> > 
> > --David
>