TortoiseSVN 1.14.1 incompatible to PuTTY keyfiles created with puttygen >=0.75

[Patrick]

Dear all,

When using TortoiseSVN 1.14.1 (and below) and the svn+ssh:// connection scheme,

it fails for all keyfiles created with puttygen.exe version >=0.75 due to a change in the private keyfile format.

The error displayed in TortoiseSVN "connection closed unexpectedly" is misleading and not helpful.

Manually invoking TortoisePlink.exe does not show any error (it just returns to the prompt like for "correct" keyfiles.

Workaround: Use an older version of puttygen.exe (e.g. 0.74) to create/convert private ssh keyfiles in order that they are accepted by TortoiseSVN.

On the long run, it would be nice if TortoiseSVN would support PuTTY's new private keyfile format.

Thanks,

Patric

[rplgn]

Hello there,

I have spent hours trying to figure out an error JUST BECAUSE the TortoisePlink.exe program did refuse to output any useful error message about the key file format being too new. I did a lot of digging and found out that you could create a log file for SSH connections using the -sshlog command line option, so I did. In the file I have seen the following message:

Event Log: Reading key file "C:\\remote_keys\osdn_key_priv.ppk"

Event Log: Unable to load key (PuTTY key format too new)

Please improve the TortoisePlink.exe program and it's error reporting. It has caused me a big deal of confusion that my procedures have worked fine two days ago and suddenly after downloading the latest PuTTy and TortoiseSVN they have not worked. I partially do blame the PuTTY authors for not displaying an information about new key file format usage and hiding that option so deeply to pick version 2. I do not recommend the OP's workaround, go to the following menu entry instead:

Key -> Parameters for saving key files... -> PPK file version

But I have learned more about generation of strong key files by digging through the PuTTY settings. Alone for that I can cool down.

- Martin

[Daniel Sahlberg]

Hi,

Judging from the log it seems that Plink was updated to version 0.75 in r29211. I would encourage you to try a nightly build from https://nightlybuilds.tortoisesvn.net/latest/. However at the moment the nightly builds seems to be broken, but please check again in a few days.

Kind regards,

Daniel Sahlberg

[Stefan]

nightly builds are working again.