Recently I spent almost a full day struggling to make out, why an sftp connection would not work without password, after setting up ssh equivalence. The keys were correct, the permissions on the directories were correct. The authorized_keys file looked ok. I copied the authorized_keys file of another account that was working fine. When I replaced the authorized_keys after taking backup of original authorized_keys, it started working. So then I proceeded to check the contents in a hex editor
On the left side you have the authorized_keys file created in Windows.
On the right side you have the same authorized_keys file created in Unix.
If you notice the ends of the lines in the Windows file it shows CR LF, where as unix shows LF.
This difference is well described in the wikipedia article on newline character.
The one mistake I had done this time was create the authorized_keys file in Windows notepad, as I was teaching a Developer how to create authorized_keys file. Once I used vi on unix to create the authorized_keys file and pasted the same ssh key, sftp started working without prompting for password. I know that Windows/DOS and Unix have different newline characters. However, I was not able to apply that knowledge, till I compared the files in hex editor.
Whenever, a techie is able to get to the root cause of a problem, a deep sense of satisfaction is experienced. I am glad I got the opportunity to troubleshoot and fix the issue by getting to the root cause of the issue.
On the left side you have the authorized_keys file created in Windows.
On the right side you have the same authorized_keys file created in Unix.
If you notice the ends of the lines in the Windows file it shows CR LF, where as unix shows LF.
This difference is well described in the wikipedia article on newline character.
The one mistake I had done this time was create the authorized_keys file in Windows notepad, as I was teaching a Developer how to create authorized_keys file. Once I used vi on unix to create the authorized_keys file and pasted the same ssh key, sftp started working without prompting for password. I know that Windows/DOS and Unix have different newline characters. However, I was not able to apply that knowledge, till I compared the files in hex editor.
Whenever, a techie is able to get to the root cause of a problem, a deep sense of satisfaction is experienced. I am glad I got the opportunity to troubleshoot and fix the issue by getting to the root cause of the issue.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment