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I can SSH into remote server just fine using private key authentication with prompt for passphrase.

However I'm getting permission denied when I try to SCP a file using the same passphrase. Here's my output:

$ scp -v [file] [user]@[remoteserver.com]:/home/[my dir]

Executing: program /usr/bin/ssh host [remoteserver.com], user [user], command scp -v -t /home/[my dir]
OpenSSH_5.3p1 Debian-3ubuntu7, OpenSSL 0.9.8k 25 Mar 2009
debug1: Reading configuration data /home/[my dir].ssh/config
debug1: Applying options for [remoteserver.com]
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to [remoteserver.com] [[remoteserver.com]] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /home/[user]/.ssh/aws_corp type -1
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.3p1 Debian-3ubuntu7
debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.3p1 Debian-3ubuntu7 pat OpenSSH*
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.3p1 Debian-3ubuntu7
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 /home/[my dir]/.ssh/known_hosts:12
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: Trying private key: /home/[my dir]/.ssh/aws_corp
debug1: PEM_read_PrivateKey failed
debug1: read PEM private key done: type <unknown>
Enter passphrase for key '/home/[my dir]/.ssh/aws_corp': 

debug1: read PEM private key done: type RSA
Connection closed by [remote server]
lost connection

I've searched for answers but can't find quite the same problem or am just being thick. Either way any help is much appreciated. Cheers!

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  • can u get the /etc/ssh/.sshd_config from the server ?
    – user218473
    Apr 20, 2013 at 9:19

2 Answers 2

2

Your scp does not say "permission denied" anywhere. It just says "Connection closed", which might mean that the server is missing a scp command, or failing to start it for some reason.

  • Try ssh [user]@[remoteserver.com] scp. If it says "usage: scp ...", then scp is okay. If it says "command not found", then...

  • If you have admin access on the remote server, check the logs there; maybe even start sshd -rdddp 222 in debug logging mode.

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  • Thanks for your help. That didn't work but I finally tracked it down to directory permissions on the remote server - I'd loosened them whilst digging around and tightened them again - voila. Feb 15, 2012 at 11:47
  • @ArtfulDodger2012 Answer your question yourself please, you can do this in a couple of hours.
    – slhck
    Feb 15, 2012 at 12:27
0

I had this problem. In my case, when I tried running scp on the server (chroot jailed), I got the unknown user error. To fix this:

Please note <jail> in the code below is the full path to the chrooted jail filesystem you created for the ssh session login.

sudo cp -vf /usr/bin/strace <jail>/bin
ldd <jail>/bin/strace
sudo cp -vf ...

Do the copy for each of the missing libraries from the main system to the <jail>/lib64 directory

In a chroot jailed session run:

strace scp

Copy over the library/libraries it fails to find per the output to the /lib64 directory using -vf option. In my case, it needed me to copy over libnss_compat.so.2

After that scp in the chrooted jail worked!

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  • But... there is no chroot jail in OP question..?
    – 174140
    Aug 7, 2019 at 6:35

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