Putty and pre-shared keys with Cygwin's sshd

[Andrew DeFaria]

On 1/24/2012 9:23 AM, Csaba Raduly wrote:
>> Would it kill you to be nice and say something
>> like "No it has to be one line. You must be using the wrong key"???
> Let me rephrase:
Csaba - I wasn't talking to you!
> Andrew: I have a Putty key and it has multiple lines. It does not work
> with sshd.
> Corinna: Read the manual of sshd. It has a section on the format of
> authorized_keys
> man page:
> AUTHORIZED_KEYS FILE FORMAT
>       AuthorizedKeysFile specifies the file containing public keys for public
>       key authentication; if none is specified, the default is
>       ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.  Each line of the file contains one key (empty
>       lines and lines starting with a `#' are ignored as comments).    (snip)
>
>       Note that lines in this file are usually several hundred bytes long (snip)
You're missing the part that Andrey was saying to save the public key 
and use that. Another person spoke of conversion between the two using 
ssh-keygen (which, BTW, failed on this particular key). IOW there was 
confusion and different answers from different "experts". That's why I 
asked a question for *CLARIFICATION*. I didn't receive an answer - I was 
pointed, cryptically, to a man page, which, BTW, I read and which, BTW, 
I came back with and admitted that it said that and pointed to the fact 
that others were saying and/or implying things differently, again, hence 
the confusion, which is best met with *CLARIFICATION* not terseness.
> Corinna showed you where to find the information which would have
> allowed you to reach this conclusion yourself:
> "I have a multiline file"  and  "sshd expects keys in a single line"
> =>  the key is in wrong format.
> This is what she meant by "teaching to fish". You are complaining that
> she didn't give you a fish outright ("the key is in wrong the
> format").
Yes indeed. She could have just answered the question and cleared up the 
confusion. It would have been nicer, more polite and best of all more 
helpful. IOW she *COULD* have done that but CHOOSE not to. This doesn't 
win you friends either. Friends are helpful - especially when people are 
confused and *asking for help* not asking for a fishing lesson. I don't 
need fishing lessons. I know how to read man pages, but sometimes they 
conflict with what other people say and (horrors) sometimes they are wrong.

There's nothing wrong with just being helpful on occasion instead of 
just being terse. You don't need to ALWAYS "teach a man to fish" or more 
likely to remind him that he could be fishing for the information himself.
>> You really should work on your people skills. I sure I'm not the first to
>> mention this.
> Strike 3.
>
> As a matter of fact, you _are_ the first to mention this:
>
> http://sourceware.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=%22people+skills%22+Corinna&cmd=Search!&form=extended&m=all&ps=10&fmt=long&wm=wrd&sp=1&sy=1&wf=2221&type=&GroupBySite=no&ul=%2Fml%2Fcygwin%2F%25
That would be true if Corinna's entire life is only on this forum. I 
suspect she might have a little bit more of a life outside of this forum 
and outside of computers. Maybe I'm wrong...
> Attacking people who _are_ trying to help you is not going to win you friends.
You also don't make friends being obtuse and terse either. I respect 
Corinna. I really do. She does a lot and is often very helpful. But 
she's also often antisocial and unhelpful too at times. We all are. For 
example, you are attacking me here. We all do it. Chill out! Geeze!
-- 
Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>
There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.


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