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Authentication failed: cloning a private repository — Permission denied (publickey)

See original GitHub issue

Description

Using a new laptop, with a fresh install of GitHub Desktop, authentication fails when I try to clone my own private repository — after passing Checking out files: 100% (1053/1053), done. and attempting Cloning into.

Screenshot of Authentication Failure dialogue

From the logs:

Cloning into '/Users/morgan/Documents/GitHub/repository'...
git@github.com: Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

I have cycled through the log-out-log-in routine suggested by hequ on #4451, revoking then reinstating GitHub Desktop’s OAuth permissions, but to no avail.

I have tried initiating the clone both within GitHub Desktop, and directly from GitHub using both HTTPS and SSH, but both fail at the same point for similar authentication issues (logs attached below).

I am able to create, and push to, new private repositories on the same account using GitHub Desktop.

The repository is forked from a separate private repository I do not own, if that makes a difference (I guess it shouldn’t).

The help article ‘Error: Permission denied (publickey)’ seems relevant, though it is written for command line users, not GitHub Desktop users.

Do I need to generate a new key pair, and associate them with my GitHub Account? — for HTTPS and SSH?

Version

GitHub Desktop: 1.5.1
Operating system: macOS 10.14.1

Steps to Reproduce

First Attempt: browser sign in

Sign in to github.com
Install GitHub Desktop
Use ‘Sign in using your browser’ to authenticate GitHub Desktop
Select ‘Clone Repository’ and choose the private repository at issue listed under ‘Your Repositories’, then ‘Clone’
The clone process starts, almost completes, then authentication fails on completion

Second Attempt: manual sign in

As First, except:

Third Attempt: HTTPS via browser

As First, except:

Select ‘Clone or Download’ from the repository on github.com —> ‘Clone with HTTPS’ —> ‘Open in Desktop’

Fourth Attempt: SSH via browser

As First, except:

Select ‘Clone or Download’ from the repository on github.com —> ‘Use SSH’ —> ‘Open in Desktop’

Notes

Between each attempt, I delete the repository folder from my local GitHub directory
After the fourth attempt, I signed out of my account on GitHub Desktop, then revoked its OAuth permissions in the browser; I then signed out of my account in the browser and signed back in again on both, attempting the above steps again

Expected Behavior

I expect step 5. to complete without an authentication failure: I am logged in with the correct username and password, both on GitHub Desktop and the browser, and have full ownership and access privileges for this repository.

Actual Behavior

Using HTTPS: Authentication fails after Checking out files has completed, on Cloning into.

The key line (er, pun) seems to be:

git@github.com: Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Using SSH: ssh: Authentication fails after Checking out files has completed, on Cloning into.

ssh: connect to host github.com port 22: Operation timed out
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Additional Information

Other possibly related things I did when setting up the new laptop for this purpose:

Installed Docker Desktop, built a Docker image, and ran a server locally
Installed the AWS CLI
Troubleshooting a problem with the local server led me to attempt a fresh clone of the site repository, which is how I ran into this authentication problem

I installed GitHub Desktop on a different new laptop a month ago, and had no issues.

Logs

HTTPS attempt: 2019-01-10.desktop.production.log SSH attempt: 2019-01-09.desktop.production.log

Issue Analytics

State:
Created 5 years ago
Comments:5 (3 by maintainers)

Top GitHub Comments

3reactions

shiftkeycommented, Jan 10, 2019

If you’re not able to get to port 22, you might be able to workaround it by rewriting the URLs from config.

These two entries in your ~/.gitconfig global config should do the trick [source]:

# Use https instead of git and git+ssh
[url "https://github.com/"]
  insteadOf = git://github.com/
[url "https://github.com/"]
  insteadOf = git@github.com:

1reaction

shiftkeycommented, Jan 10, 2019

@morqon I think you’re seeing the ongoing SSH failures because your submodules are configured with SSH (these are not affected by whether the initial clone is HTTP or SSH):

Submodule 'source/javascripts/objcjs' (git@github.com:objcio/objcjs.git) registered for path 'source/javascripts/objcjs'
Submodule 'source/stylesheets/objcss' (git@github.com:objcio/objcss.git) registered for path 'source/stylesheets/objcss'
Cloning into '/Users/morgan/Documents/GitHub/morgan-objcio-website/source/articles'...
ssh: connect to host github.com port 22: Operation timed out
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.
fatal: clone of 'git@github.com:objcio/articles.git' into submodule path '/Users/morgan/Documents/GitHub/morgan-objcio-website/source/articles' failed