Permission denied for *.pem file

Question

I have *.pem and *.ppk file for my server I tried to ssh into it using that. But it showed permission Denied. I took verbose log for that. But I am not able to understand why it said permission denied. It was distributed to other people and they are abled to log in with same key from windows. But from my ubuntu I am not able to log in. I am enlisting my steps here L

Downloaded ppk and ppm files moved to .ssh folder Then

chmod 400 *.ppm
chmod 400 *.ppk

chown $USER:$USER *.ppk
chown $USER:$USER *.ppm

ssh -i -v *.ppm [email protected]

Then came the debug :

OpenSSH_6.6.1, OpenSSL 1.0.1f 6 Jan 2014
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 19: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to ip.ip.ip.ip [ip.ip.ip.ip] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: permanently_set_uid: 0/0
debug1: identity file *.pem type -1
debug1: identity file *.pem-cert type -1
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_6.6.1p1 Ubuntu-2ubuntu2
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_6.6.1p1 Ubuntu-2ubuntu2
debug1: match: OpenSSH_6.6.1p1 Ubuntu-2ubuntu2 pat OpenSSH_6.6.1* compat 0x04000000
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr [email protected] none
debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr [email protected] none
debug1: sending SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_INIT
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_REPLY
debug1: Server host key: ECDSA AA:BB:CC:99:92:67:90:78:56:vv:tt:9l:6y:c7g:67:78
debug1: Host 'ip.ip.ip.ip' is known and matches the ECDSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /root/.ssh/known_hosts:3
debug1: ssh_ecdsa_verify: signature correct
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: Roaming not allowed by server
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: *.pem
debug1: key_parse_private2: missing begin marker
debug1: read PEM private key done: type RSA
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey
debug1: No more authentication methods to try.
Permission denied (publickey)

Let me know if any other verbose is needed.

Solution

Go back and look at the actual text of your .pem file. It must look like this :

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
.
. (20 odd lines of key)
.
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

It is complaining about the "beginning marker", so did you delete or alter this at all ? Recommend re-copying. The .ppk is generally used for PuTTY, especially from Windows.

EDIT , take II

I can only suggest having a look at a hexdump then, and you may have to regenerate. Also name it .pem if it is a .pem file and either have it in the same folder (~ ?) you launch from or specify a path. (~/.ssh/xxxx.pem).
On the server the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys folder is conventional, but from the command line on a client the .pem file can be anywhere.

Comments

[ninja.stop]

It was there. Still problem.

[mckenzm]

I can only suggest having a look at the hexdump then, and you may have to regenerate.

[mckenzm]

And just in case, go back to your /etc/ssh/sshd_config on the server and make sure it allows RSA.