I am getting back into web development and cannot connect to ANY newly created droplet using a SSH key. Steps I Took: Generate a new SSH key using PuttyGen Add that key to DigitalOcean using the ‘public key’ Add “root” as the username to use in Putty Add the SSH key’s private key in Putty Click “Open”. Putty throws “server refused our key” error. This happens on ANY and ALL droplets I create AND with any SSH Key I generate.

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Question

SSH: Server refused our key.

Posted on January 24, 2024

DigitalOcean Droplets

By LWGShane

I am getting back into web development and cannot connect to ANY newly created droplet using a SSH key.

Steps I Took:

Generate a new SSH key using PuttyGen
Add that key to DigitalOcean using the ‘public key’
Add “root” as the username to use in Putty
Add the SSH key’s private key in Putty
Click “Open”.
Putty throws “server refused our key” error.

This happens on ANY and ALL droplets I create AND with any SSH Key I generate.

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KFSys

January 24, 2024

Heya @lwgshane,

Can you share your logs?

Additionally, what you can do is try and use the WebConsole to connect via SSH to your Droplet:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/connect-with-console/

Once inside, go to /root/.ssh/authorized_keys check if the public key is properly added, is it the same as the one you added or do you see any other problems?

Additionally, can you share the logs when trying to connect as well?

Bobby

January 27, 2024

Hey!

Happy to hear that you’ve got this all sorted out by upgrading to the latest version of Putty! And thank you for sharing that information here with the community.

For anyone who might come across this in the future as well, here is a step by step guide on how to connect to your Droplets using Putty:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/connect-with-ssh/putty/

Best,

Bobby

alexdo

January 31, 2024

Heya, @lwgshane

I’m glad that you’ve sorted the issue. I would like to share this article on how to use Visual Studio Code for remote development. I believe it may come in handy when it comes to web dev and code deployment.

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-visual-studio-code-for-remote-development-via-the-remote-ssh-plugin

Hope that this helps!