ssh login successful, but scp password gives me "Permission denied"

ssh permissions scp ssh-keygen

30,576

Solution 1

Your user account on the remote host probably does not have write permissions to the /home/www/remotedirectory/ directory. You can test this by running:

scp -v phpinfo.php [email protected]:/tmp/phpinfo.php

Once this has been confirmed to work, you can set permissions and/or ownership on that directory. For a quick fix, chmod 777 /home/www/remotedirectory/ as root will work, but this is not a secure solution. Depending on how the server is used, better would be to change the directory's group using chgrp to a group that you want all writers to that directory to be in and chmod g+w /home/www/remotedirectory/

Solution 2

This is purely a permissions problem. The user "remoteuser" on "remoteserver" doesn't have permissions to write files to /home/www/remotedirectory/phpinfo.php. See this error in your scp -v .. commands output:

debug1: Sending command: scp -v -t /home/www/remotedirectory/phpinfo.php
Sending file modes: C0644 20 phpinfo.php
Sink: C0644 20 phpinfo.php
scp: /home/www/remotedirectory/phpinfo.php: Permission denied
debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype exit-status reply 0
debug1: channel 0: free: client-session, nchannels 1

You can confirm this by ssh'ing into "remoteserver" just like you did originally and try and touch a file in this directory:

$ ssh remoteuser@remoteserver

on remoteserver

$ touch /home/www/remotedirectory/afile
touch: cannot touch ‘/home/www/remotedirectory/afile’: Permission denied

You can see the ownership of this directory with this command:

$ ls -ld /home/www/remotedirectory
drwxrwx---. 125 someuser somegroup 16384 Feb 22 14:03 /home/www/remotedirectory

So you'll need to either change the permissions here or take care to add "remoteuser" to the group "somegroup".

30,576

YANewb

I've built lots of small websites, but I either had a server admin who handled all server maintenance and upgrades, or I was working on my local machine and have used packages (e.g., RVM, MacPorts, ) so I could get to coding with as little server and system set-up as possible. Recently I inherited control of an existing web server and can't get even the most simple of things to work.

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

YANewb almost 2 years

I'm trying to get some blogging software up on an organizational remote server. I tried to set up a SSH Key but was having problems and decided that getting the blog up and running was more important than dealing with the SSH Key issue, so I ssh-keygen -R remoteserver.com.

Now I can successfully login with ssh -v [email protected] and the correct password. Once logged in I can move around and read any file and directory that I should be able to read.

But when I try to edit an existing -rw-r--r-- file with VIM, it shows up as read-only, if I try to edit permissions I get chmod: file.ext: Operation not permitted, and if I try to scp a new file from my local machine I'm prompted for the remote user's password, and then get scp: /home/path/to/file.ext: Permission denied.

Since I didn't have any of these problems before I tried to set up the ssh key, I suspect these anomalies are a side effect of that, but I don't know how to troubleshoot this. So what does a foolish server-newb, such as myself, need to do to get edit capability back as a remote user?

Addendum 1:

My userids are different between my local machine and the remote server.

For ssh I ssh -v [email protected].
- if I whoami I get remoteuser
For scp I scp file.ext [email protected]:/path/to/file.ext from the local directory with file.ext while logged in as the local user.
- if I whoami I get localuser

The ls -l for two different files I've tried scp:

-rw-r--r--@   1 localuser  localgroup    20 Feb 11 21:03 phpinfo.php
-rw-r--r--    1 root       localgroup     4 Feb 11 22:32 test.txt

The ls -l for the file I've tried to VIM:

-rw-r--r--   1 remoteuser  remotegroup      76 Jul 27  2009 info.txt

Addendum 2:

In the past I've set up ssh-keys for git repositories. I don't want to completely destroy them, so in an attempt to follow a deer's train of thinking I renamed my ~/.ssh/ to ~/.ssh-bak/, then tested the different types of access. The abridged version of the terminal commands and results is below; I think everything is working until the 8th line from the end.

ssh -v

localcomputer:~ localuser$ ssh -v [email protected]
OpenSSH_5.2p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8l 5 Nov 2009
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config
debug1: Connecting to remoteserver.com [###.###.###.###] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /Users/localuser/.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_rsa type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.8p2 FreeBSD-20110503
debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.8p2 FreeBSD-20110503 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
The authenticity of host 'remoteserver.com (###.###.###.###)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is ##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'remoteserver.com,###.###.###.###' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
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,password
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /Users/localuser/.ssh/identity
debug1: Trying private key: /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Trying private key: /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: Next authentication method: password
[email protected]'s password: 
debug1: Authentication succeeded (password).
debug1: channel 0: new [client-session]
debug1: Requesting [email protected]
debug1: Entering interactive session.
Last login: Sun Feb 12 18:00:54 2012 from 68.69.164.123
FreeBSD 6.4-RELEASE-p8 (VKERN) #1 r101746: Mon Aug 30 10:34:40 MDT 2010

remote permissions

[remoteuser@remoteserver /home]$ ls -l
total ###
-rw-r--r--   1 remoteuser remotegroup      76 Aug 12  2009 info.txt

[remoteuser@remoteserver /home]$ vim info.txt                                                                                                                                                                                                
~ {at the bottom of the VIM screen it tells me it's [read only]}                                                                                                                                                                                                    

[remoteuser@remoteserver /home]$ whoami 
remoteuser

[remoteuser@remoteserver /home]$ logout
debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype exit-status reply 0
debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype [email protected] reply 0
debug1: channel 0: free: client-session, nchannels 1
Connection to remoteserver.com closed.
Transferred: sent 3872, received 12496 bytes, in 107.4 seconds
Bytes per second: sent 36.1, received 116.4
debug1: Exit status 0

scp -v

localcomputer:localdirectory name$ scp -v phpinfo.php [email protected]:/home/www/remotedirectory/phpinfo.php
Executing: program /usr/bin/ssh host remoteserver.com, user remoteuser, command scp -v -t /home/www/remotedirectory/phpinfo.php
OpenSSH_5.2p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8l 5 Nov 2009
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config
debug1: Connecting to remoteserver.com [###.###.###.###] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /Users/localuser/.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_rsa type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.8p2 FreeBSD-20110503
debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.8p2 FreeBSD-20110503 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 'remoteserver.com' is known and matches the RSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /Users/localuser/.ssh/known_hosts:1
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,password
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /Users/localuser/.ssh/identity
debug1: Trying private key: /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Trying private key: /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: Next authentication method: password
[email protected]'s password: 
debug1: Authentication succeeded (password).
debug1: channel 0: new [client-session]
debug1: Requesting [email protected]
debug1: Entering interactive session.
debug1: Sending command: scp -v -t /home/www/remotedirectory/phpinfo.php
Sending file modes: C0644 20 phpinfo.php
Sink: C0644 20 phpinfo.php
scp: /home/www/remotedirectory/phpinfo.php: Permission denied
debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype exit-status reply 0
debug1: channel 0: free: client-session, nchannels 1
debug1: fd 0 clearing O_NONBLOCK
debug1: fd 1 clearing O_NONBLOCK
Transferred: sent 1456, received 2160 bytes, in 0.6 seconds
Bytes per second: sent 2322.3, received 3445.1
debug1: Exit status 1

ott-- over 12 years

What is your userid and id on the remote server, and what does ls -l show for the file you can't change?
gokva over 12 years

when you say, you didn't have any problems before, what was the before situation?
YANewb over 12 years

@TomH - Before I started mucking around with ssh-keys I was able to edit files from the remote server and upload new files to the remote server. I had problems implementing an ssh-key for the server in question, and when I tried to revert to the non-ssh-key login method I had previously been using, I lost write capability, but I can still read.
cjc over 12 years

This is so bizarre. Are you sure the filesystem is mounted read-write? Run mount. Can you also show the contents of the authorized_keys file?
YANewb over 12 years

@cjc I'm not familiar with mount. If you meant something else, please let me know. [remoteuser@remoteserver ~]$ mount /dev/aacd0s1e on / (ufs, local, with quotas) /dev/aacd0s1e on /skel (ufs, local, with quotas, read-only) devfs on /dev (devfs) /dev/aacd0s1d on /ports (ufs, local, read-only) /dev/aacd1s1e on /backup (ufs, local, read-only)