GNU bug report logs - #75392
“Failed to read private key” error with libssh 0.11.1

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Message #10 received at 75392 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>
To: 75392 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#75392: “Failed to read private
 key” error with libssh 0.11.1
Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2025 10:07:04 +0100

Hello,

> It would seem that somehow libssh dismisses whatever gpg-agent tells it
> and then goes on to read key files directly.

Turns out the problem was sorta between keyboard and chair, but not
just!

Namely:

  1. libssh 0.11.x no longer recognizes DSA keys (which is reasonable),
     and it would choke when encountering one: “Unknown key type
     found!”, from ‘ssh_pki_import_pubkey_blob’.

  2. I had stale DSA keys under ~/.ssh, so I removed them.

  3. Problem: silly gpg-agent (which I use with ‘--enable-ssh-support’)
     would keep serving those DSA keys that I had removed!  Turns out it
     caches private keys under ~/.gnupg/private-keys-v1.d so I also had
     to remove them as well.

After that, everything went well.  Pfew.

Ludo’.

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