I had a similar problem setting up public key authentication (with similar verbose output from the client), though I was trying to do it from an Ubuntu client to a Cygwin SSHD server, and it was a very old Cygwin environment (version 1.5.12 on Windows 2000!). I had copied the public key using ssh-copy-id.
SSH keys are a way to identify trusted computers, without involving passwords. The steps below will walk you through generating an SSH key and adding the public key to the server.
Step 1: Check for SSH Keys
First, check for existing SSH keys on your computer. Open Git Bash, Cygwin, or Terminal, etc. and enter:
Check the directory listing to see if you already have a public SSH key. By default, the filenames of the public keys are one of the following:
- id_dsa.pub
- is_ecdsa.pub
- id_ed25519.pub
- id_rsa.pub
If you see an existing public and private key pair listed (for example id_rsa.pub and id_rsa) that you’d like to use, you can skip Step 2 and go straight to Step 3.
Step 2: Generate a new SSH key
With your command line tool still open, enter the text shown below. Make sure you substitute in your email address:
You’ll be asked to enter a passphrase, or simply press Enter to not enter a passphrase:
After you enter a passphrase (or just press Enter twice), review the fingerprint, or ‘id’ of your SSH key:
Step 3: Add your key to the ssh-agent
To configure the ssh-agent program to use your SSH key, first ensure ssh-agent is enabled.
If you are using Git Bash, turn on the ssh-agent with command shown below instead:
Ssh Public Key Windows
Then, add your SSH key to the ssh-agent:
Step 4: Add your SSH key to the server
To add your public SSH key to the server, you’ll copy the public SSH key you just created to the server. Substitute “username” with your username on the server, and “server.address.com” with the domain address or IP address of your server:
The server will then prompt you for your password:
Generate Ssh Public Key Cygwin Version
Github Generate Ssh Key Windows
That’s it! You should now be set up to connect to the server without having to authenticate.