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I have a problem with SSH key usage for GIT on windows. It works fine from windows GUI git clients. From the terminal - git-bash / mingw32 - it fails with

$ git pull
git@<gitserver redacted>: Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

I have run eval "$(ssh-agent -s)" and ssh-add ~/.ssh/2025-my-PRIVATE-key.ppk but to no avail.

My key content is of the form

$ cat ~/.ssh/2025-my-PRIVATE-key.ppk
PuTTY-User-Key-File-3: ssh-rsa
Encryption: aes256-cbc
Comment: rsa-key-2025-testing
Public-Lines: 6
REDACTED
...
REDACTED
Key-Derivation: REDACTED
...
Private-Lines: 14
REDACTED
...
Private-MAC: REDACTED
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  • I’m voting to close this question because it's blatantly off-topic as question for software run on windows (and not within a Unix/Linux VM). Commented Oct 20 at 19:57
  • i'm not running a vm, but git-bash for windows, but i get the sentiment Commented Oct 22 at 18:50

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my private key is .ppk format.

This is fine for the GUI git client on windows, but won't work with the bash like terminal git-bash / mingw32.

The problem is that the .ppk format is PuTTY's native format and will not work directly with OpenSSH tooling which expects OpenSSH format.

To use the key in the git-bahsh environment, I have to export an openssh compatible version.

Based on this anwser by @workabyte (and really the call-out comment by klor which is what caught my eye), I tried opening and re-exporting the private key for use with git-bash and that was fine.

Detail

  1. opened the "PuTTyGen" app (PuTTY Key Generator)
  2. used the "Load" button and selected my private key
  3. select menu item Conversions -> Export OpenSshKey and save the file as a new name
    • the openSSH file extension is typically .pem, .key or no extension.
    • i chose .pem

Then from the shell i can run:

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
ssh-add ~/.ssh/2025-my-PRIVATE-key.pem
git pull

and get good connection and output:

Agent pid 2376
Enter passphrase for /c/Users/mud/.ssh/2025-my-PRIVATE-key.pem:
Identity added: /c/Users/mud/.ssh/2025-my-PRIVATE-key.pem (/c/Users/mud/.ssh/2025-my-PRIVATE-key.pem)
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