Permissions error when connecting to EC2 via SSH on Mac OSx

Two possibilities I can think of, although they are both mentioned in the link you referenced:

1. You're not specifying the correct SSH keypair file or user name in the ssh command you're using to log into the server:

   ssh -i [full path to keypair file] root@[EC2 instance hostname or IP address]

2. You don't have the correct permissions on the keypair file; you should use

   chmod 600 [keypair file]

to ensure that only you can read or write the file.

Try using the -v option with ssh to get more info on where exactly it's failing, and post back here if you''d like more help.

[Update]: OK, so this is what you should have seen if everything was set up properly:

debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,gssapi-with-mic
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: ec2-keypair
debug1: read PEM private key done: type RSA
debug1: Authentication succeeded (publickey).

Are you running the ssh command from the directory containing the ec2-keypair file ? If so, try specifying -i ./ec2-keypair just to eliminate path problems. Also check "ls -l [full path to ec2-keypair]" file and make sure the permissions are 600 (displayed as rw-------). If none of that works, I'd suspect the contents of the keypair file, so try recreating it using the steps in your link.

If the issue is consistent and happened about 10-15 times in a row even after changing file permissions to 400 or 600, then it is most certainly something is wrong on the ec2 instance, so to make sure:

1. Check the logs when you try to ssh to the instance by adding -v at the end and see either it gives out anything specific.

2. Make sure you use the correct name for ssh, like Ubuntu. Perhaps that depends on Linux distribution and users you added and either you've given permission for "root user" ssh.

Then if nothing helps, follow the documentation here https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/TroubleshootingInstancesConnecting.html#TroubleshootingInstancesConnectingMindTerm to fix that. It helped in my case, and it happened because of messed up directories/files permissions.

Had a similar issue. Here are the steps used to setup SSH keys and forwarding on the Mac. Made these notes for myself - may help someone... check against your config.

The assumption here is there are no keys setup. If you already have the keys setup skip this section.

$ ssh‐keygen ‐t rsa ‐b 4096

Generating public/private rsa key pair.

Enter a file in which to save the key (/Users/you/.ssh/id_rsa): [Press enter] Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): [Type a passphrase] Enter same passphrase again: [Type passphrase again]

Modify ~/.ssh/config adding the entry for the key file:

~/.ssh/config should look similar to:

Host *

AddKeysToAgent yes

UseKeychain yes

IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Store the private key in the keychain:

$ ssh‐add ‐K ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Go test it now with: ssh -A username@yourhostname

Should forward your key to yourhostname. Assuming your keys are added on you should connect without issue.

I was getting this error when I was trying to ssh into an ec2 instance on the private subnet from the bastion, to fix this issue, you've to run (ssh-add -K) as follow.

    Step 1: run "chmod 400 myEC2Key.pem"
    Step 2: run "ssh-add -K ./myEC2Key.pem" on your local machine
    Step 3: ssh -i myEC2Key.pem root@ec2-107-20-4-100.compute-1.amazonaws.com
    Step 4: Now try to ssh to EC2 instance that is on a private subnet without specifying the key, for example, try ssh ec2-user@ipaddress.

    Hope this will help.
Note: This solution is for Mac.