Private key passphrase not accepted on my Chromebook

[bstri...@gmail.com]

I'm having difficulty getting my private key passphrase to be accepted in my Chromebook. The same private key passphrase is accepted on my Windows machine (generated via puttygen). I tried following the various tips in this other thread (https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/topic/chromium-hterm/Ey3p25Nycs4/discussion), but none worked.

Here's the debug:

debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /.ssh/VPS
debug1: key_parse_private_pem: PEM_read_PrivateKey failed
debug1: read PEM private key done: type <unknown>
Enter passphrase for key '/.ssh/VPS': 
debug1: key_parse_private_pem: PEM_read_PrivateKey failed

From Google searches for this error on Linux systems, it sounds like this could be a permissions issue in the HTML5 filesystem.

Another guy commented the same issue here: http://kaleb.horns.by/comp/os/chrome/ssh-keys/

Thanks for any help.

[bstri...@gmail.com]

Figured it out. It didn't like the private key generated by puttygen. I followed the tutorial to generate a new key on the server itself and those files work like a charm.

So, I guess this is an enhancement request: support private key files (.ppk) created by puttygen.

Here's a sample of what the private key looks like:

PuTTY-User-Key-File-2: ssh-rsa
Encryption: aes256-cbc
Comment: MyVPS
Public-Lines: 4
##
=
Private-Lines: 8
##
==
Private-MAC: ##

[Robert Ginda]

Secure Shell uses OpenSSH to provide this kind of stuff.  If OpenSSH supports ppk keys, then it just a matter of fixing Secure Shells oddball handling of identities.  If not, then this isn't likely to be fixed.

[jon.ne...@gmail.com]

I was experiencing identical symptoms.

In the event these directions remain unclear to anyone, and you are using puttygen.exe:

1. load into puttygen.exe your passphrase-protected private key
2. then select (near File) Conversions > Export OpenSSH key.
   
3. use that version.