Git FTP not finding pipeline SSH key

[Dylan ten Donkelaar]

Hi, i've been trying to get a pipeline working which uses SSH keys and Git FTP. Past 2 days i've gotten the same error:

SSH public key authentication failed: Unable to open public key file

I've tried changing the path, checked the keys, etc. I don't know how to actually access the keys and get the correct path for the pipeline to be able to find them. I've tested this locally in VS-code by specifying the path to the keys which are stored on my computer, and that does seem to work. Why i can not access the SSH key that i configured in the repository settings is beyond me.

I've searched everywhere and found that the pipeline doesn't know what to do with ~/. If someone could provide me the actual path i'm supposed to use to grab the keys, that would be great.

My current pipeline file:

image: node:15.12.0

definitions:
caches:
node: wp-content/themes/webpack/node_modules
pipelines:
branches:
master:
- step:
name: Install node & deploy to production
script:
- apt-get update -y
- apt-get install -y ssh
- apt-get install -y libssh2-1-dev
- apt-get -qq install git-ftp
- ls -a /opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh/
- ls -a ~/.ssh/config
- git ftp push -vv --insecure -u $USER --key /opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh/id_rsa --pubkey /opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh/id_rsa.pub sftp://$SFTP_URL

[Theodora Boudale · Accepted solution]

Hi @Dylan ten Donkelaar,

The SSH key should be located at

/opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh/id_rsa

Could you please check if you can connect to your server using the path above?

I'll check with my team internally to see if there have been any changes, as I see that the path mentioned in our docs is ~/.ssh/my_ssh_key.

Kind regards,
Theodora

[Dylan ten Donkelaar]

Hi @Theodora Boudale

Thank you for replying. The public key is indeed in that location. I've checked with ls -la /opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh, returning a id_rsa and a id_rsa.tmp. Git-ftp still can not seem to find it.

I've also checked the ~/root/.ssh/config for the private key file but there's no key to be found there, even though the SSH-key settings in the repo say that a default identity of the private key is supposed to be in that folder.

[Dylan ten Donkelaar]

Hi @Theodora Boudale

Our hosting provider just helped me find the solution.

The following lines did the trick:

- ssh-keygen -y -f /opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh/id_rsa > /tmp/id_rsa.pub
- git ftp push -vv --insecure -u $USER --key /opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh/id_rsa --pubkey /tmp/id_rsa.pub sftp://$SFTP_URL

I will keep this thread just in case anyone else stumbles upon the same issue.

[Theodora Boudale]

Hi @Dylan ten Donkelaar,

Thank you for posting this for future reference for other users.

I just wanted to add here some notes as well for clarification:

It's actually the public key that cannot be found, /opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh/id_rsa is the path of the private SSH key.

The command you included from your hosting provider

- ssh-keygen -y -f /opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh/id_rsa > /tmp/id_rsa.pub

generates the public SSH key from the private one and stores it in /tmp/id_rsa.pub, so you can use it as an argument in the git ftp command.

Another way to solve this would be to copy the public key from Repository settings > SSH keys and include the following command in the yml file:

- echo "paste_public_key_here" >> /tmp/id_rsa.pub

Kind regards,
Theodora

[Dylan ten Donkelaar]

Edit: nevermind.

[Christian Sciberras]

The private key doesn't seem to exist, even the id_rsa_tmp mentioned here (or elsewhere named id_rsa.tmp).

+ ls -la /opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh
total 4
drwxrwxrwt 3 root root  100 Jul 5 17:13 .
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 Jul 5 17:13 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   60 Jul 5 17:13 ..2024_07_05_17_13_09.3906268909
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   32 Jul 5 17:13 ..data -> ..2024_07_05_17_13_09.3906268909
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   18 Jul 5 17:13 known_hosts -> ..data/known_hosts

+ ls -la /opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh/..data/
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   60 Jul 5 17:13 .
drwxrwxrwt 3 root root  100 Jul 5 17:13 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1665 Jul 5 17:13 known_hosts

+ ssh-keygen -y -f /opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh/id_rsa > /tmp/id_rsa.pub
/opt/atlassian/pipelines/agent/ssh/id_rsa: No such file or directory

Interestingly, BITBUCKET_SSH_KEY_FILE also points to the non-existent id_rsa file.

[Theodora Boudale]

Hi Christian,

You need to generate an SSH key pair in Pipelines first or add your own. If you are a repo admin, you can do this from Repository settings > section PIPELINES - SSH Keys.

If you're still experiencing issues, please create a new question instead of replying here. It's best to have a separate question per issue, as a certain post may become convoluted and diffcult to follow if we try to troubleshoot multiple users' issues in it.

Kind regards,
Theodora

[Christian Sciberras]

Hello Theodora,

Thanks for confirming that!

Just a suggestion: would be nice to see it mentioned more often in the documentation (for instance the link I already posted doesn't mention that it needs to be set up first, neither is it mentioned in the env var documentation despite the fact that the env var does exist and points to a non-existent file - which is very confusing).

Best,
Chris.