SSH Private Key Permissions using Git GUI or ssh-keygen are too open

You changed the permissions on the whole directory, which I agree with Splash is a bad idea. If you can remember what the original permissions for the directory are, I would try to set them back to that and then do the following

cd ~/.ssh
chmod 700 id_rsa

inside the .ssh folder. That will set the id_rsa file to rwx (read, write, execute) for the owner (you) only, and zero access for everyone else.

If you can't remember what the original settings are, add a new user and create a set of SSH keys for that user, thus creating a new .ssh folder which will have default permissions. You can use that new .ssh folder as the reference for permissions to reset your .ssh folder and files to.

If that doesn't work, I would try doing an uninstall of msysgit, deleting ALL .ssh folders on the computer (just for safe measure), then reinstalling msysgit with your desired settings and try starting over completely (though I think you told me you tried this already).

Edited: Also just found this link via Google -- Fixing "WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE!" on Linux While it's targeted at linux, it might help since we're talking liunx permissions and such.

There is a bug with cygwin's chmod, please refer to:

https://superuser.com/questions/397288/using-cygwin-in-windows-8-chmod-600-does-not-work-as-expected

chgrp -Rv Users ~/.ssh/* 
chmod -vR 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa

I'm on XP and this allowed Git Bash to communicate w/ Github (after much frustration):

1. copy c:\cygwin\bin\cyg* (~50 files) to c:\Program Files\Git\bin\
2. copy c:\cygwin\bin\ssh.exe to c:\Program Files\Git\bin\ (overwriting)

3. Create the file c:\Documents and Settings\<username>\.ssh\config containing:

   Host github.com
       User git
       Hostname github.com
       PreferredAuthentications publickey
       IdentityFile "/cygdrive/c/Documents and Settings/<username>/.ssh/id_rsa"
   

4. (optional) Use ssh -v git@github to see the connection debugged.

5. Try a push!

Background: The general problem is a combination of these two:

• BUG: mingw32 sees all files as 644 (other/group-readable), and nothing I tried in mingw32, cygwin, or Windows could fix it.
• mingw32's SSH version won't allow that for private keys (generally a good policy in a server).

After comming across the problem recently and this being one of the top google results i thought i would chip in with a simple work around documented in discussion here: http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/issues/detail?id=261#c40

Simply involves overwriting the mysys ssh.exe with your cygwin ssh.exe

I'm playing right now with Git 1.6.5, and I can't replicate your setup:

Administrator@WS2008 /k/git
$ ll ~/.ssh
total 8
drwxr-xr-x    2 Administ Administ     4096 Oct 13 22:04 ./
drwxr-xr-x    6 Administ Administ     4096 Oct  6 21:36 ../
-rw-r--r--    1 Administ Administ        0 Oct 13 22:04 c.txt
-rw-r--r--    1 Administ Administ      403 Sep 30 22:36 config_disabled
-rw-r--r--    1 Administ Administ      887 Aug 30 16:33 id_rsa
-rw-r--r--    1 Administ Administ      226 Aug 30 16:34 id_rsa.pub
-rw-r--r--    1 Administ Administ      843 Aug 30 16:32 id_rsa_putty.ppk
-rw-r--r--    1 Administ Administ      294 Aug 30 16:33 id_rsa_putty.pub
-rw-r--r--    1 Administ Administ     1626 Sep 30 22:49 known_hosts

Administrator@WS2008 /k/git
$ git clone git@github.com:alexandrul/gitbook.git
Initialized empty Git repository in k:/git/gitbook/.git/
remote: Counting objects: 1152, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (625/625), done.
remote: Total 1152 (delta 438), reused 1056 (delta 383)s
Receiving objects: 100% (1152/1152), 1.31 MiB | 78 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (438/438), done.

Administrator@WS2008 /k/git
$ ssh git@github.com
ERROR: Hi alexandrul! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not pro
vide shell access
Connection to github.com closed.

$ ssh -v
OpenSSH_4.6p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8e 23 Feb 2007

chmod doesn't modify file permissions for my keys either.

Environment:

• Windows Server 2008 SP2 on NTFS
• user: administrator
• environment vars:
  • PLINK_PROTOCOL=ssh
  • HOME=/c/profiles/home

Update: Git 1.6.5.1 works as well.

Not a direct answer to the primary question, but on your question of how cygwin's folder works... As a general rule, cygwin puts all of "your" files under the equiv of c:\cygwin\home\username. It treats that folder for any user-specific settings rather than the Windows user directory.