bad permissions ignore key ssh my private key pem Permission denied publickey

Question

Hi Guys,

I am trying to connect my instance using SSH, but it shows me the below error.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@         WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE!          @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Permissions 0777 for '.ssh/my_private_key.pem' are too open.
It is required that your private key files are NOT accessible by others.
This private key will be ignored.
bad permissions: ignore key: .ssh/my_private_key.pem
Permission denied (publickey).

How can I solve this error?

Answer 1

Hi@akhtar,

In your error message it shows you are using .ssh/my_private_key.pem with file permissions of 0777, which allow anyone to read or write to this file. This permission level is very insecure, and so SSH ignores this key. To fix the error, execute the following command, substituting the path for your private key file.

$ chmod 0400 .ssh/my_private_key.pem

Hope this will solve your error?