Authentication failure with OpenSSH on Windows

Question

Hey everybody,

I have been using SourceTree on Windows for some time now without thinking much about it (good thing!). With the latest update SourceTree suggested that I should update the embedded git I have been using. After doing so SSH access to my repositories does no longer work.

I have been using OpenSSH and I assume the following should work:

- [cmd] generate a key pair with ssh-keygen

- add the public key on the web site

- [cmd] test config with ssh -T git@bitbucket.org, running this tells me things work fine

- add the private key in SourceTree so that it shows up under Tools/Options/General

I noticed that the git-bash I can start from SourceTree does not produce any output for ssh commands. This made me run the key generation and test from the Windows command shell. This also means that ssh-add -l is not helpful for me (ssh-add -l >>foo.txt 2>&1 produces an empty file).

Why do I not see anything when using ssh commands in the git-bash?

I would expect SSH access to work when [cmd] ssh -T ... tells me things are fine. Instead I get "fatal: Could not read from remote repository" on cloning in bash.  Where do I go wrong?

Best, Dirk

distee · Answer

Thanks for the hint!

Keep up the good work, I prefer Sourcetree over the command line any day.

minnsey · Answer

Thanks for the information.

Without want to shirk any responsibility, if there is an issue in Git Bash then it is more likely to be an issue with Git for Windows itself rather than Sourcetree.

distee · Answer

Yep, I was running openSSH. Things were fine (for more than a year) until I upgraded the embedded git to 2.17.1 (as suggested by the orange flag). Now I am also running on PuTTY/Pagaent.

Nonetheless, I wonder whether I went wrong somewhere or whether this is a bug. SSH commands not giving any output in the git-bash smells buggy to me.