Can't ssh to AWS EC2: Identity file not accessible

Question

I'm unable to ssh to my EC2 server and am getting the error:

ssh -i /Users/Skeniver/Keepass/skeniver.pem [email protected]

Identity file /Users/Skeniver/Keepass/skeniver.pem not accessible: No such file or directory

The file is definitely in the directory and I've chmod'd the directory to 755 and the file to 600:

drwxr-xr-x  14 Skeniver  staff    476 28 Nov  2012 Keepass

-rw-------  1 Skeniver  staff    1696  5 Oct  2012 skeniverkey.pem

I'm pretty sure it's a permissions problem, but can't figure out why.

Here is the output of the ssh command using -v, in case it's of any use:

Warning: Identity file /Users/Skeniver/Keepass/skeniver.pem not accessible: No such file or directory.

OpenSSH_5.2p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8r 8 Feb 2011

debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config

debug1: Connecting to xx.xxx.xx.xxx [xx.xxx.xx.xxx] port 22.

debug1: Connection established.

debug1: identity file /Users/Skeniver/.ssh/identity type -1

debug1: identity file /Users/Skeniver/.ssh/id_rsa type 1

debug1: identity file /Users/Skeniver/.ssh/id_dsa type -1

debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.9p1 Debian-5ubuntu1.1

debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.9p1 Debian-5ubuntu1.1 pat OpenSSH*

debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0

debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.2

debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent

debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received

debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none

debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none

debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent

debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP

debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent

debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY

debug1: Host 'xx.xxx.xx.xxx' is known and matches the RSA host key.

debug1: Found key in /Users/Skeniver/.ssh/known_hosts:8

debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct

debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent

debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS

debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received

debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent

debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received

debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey

debug1: Next authentication method: publickey

debug1: Offering public key: /Users/Skeniver/.ssh/id_rsa

debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey

debug1: Trying private key: /Users/Skeniver/.ssh/identity

debug1: Trying private key: /Users/Skeniver/.ssh/id_dsa

debug1: No more authentication methods to try.

Permission denied (publickey).

Answer 1

You will need to provide the identity file and its path to login.

Use the following command.

Note: Identity file should be the file that has the public/private key, that is, your keypair pem file.

ssh -1 /path/keypair.pem username@public_dns_name

In the above command, path is the path of your keypair file.

if you are using Ubuntu AMI then the username will be ubuntu. The username for most of the other AMIs including Amazon Linux is ec2-user.

Answer 2

The identity file is required to log in to the box.Use the command:

ssh -i (identity_file) username@hostname"
Use the filename (without any back slash):
ssh -i /path/key_pair.pem ec2-user@public_dns_name
It works after placing the identity file in the .ssh folder within the home directory.You can use ctrl+H to view the hidden folders there.