JSCH - Invalid private key

Question

I am running JDK 1.7 & Windows 7 using netbeans 7.2 I have generated a SSH private & public key pair (SSH2-2048 bits) using putty-keygen. I do not have any password for private key. I am now trying to connect to one of the host machine using SFTP. But when I pass private key (ppk) to set Identity, code is returning invalid private key error. I used same private key in WinSCP to connect to same host & it is working fine. Kindly help me to resolve the error. Here is my code:

JSch jsch = new JSch();

Session session = null;

try {

    jsch.addIdentity("D:\\TEMP\\key.ppk");

    session = jsch.getSession("tiabscp", "ssiw.support.qvalent.com", 22);
    session.setConfig("StrictHostKeyChecking", "no");
    //session.setPassword("");
    session.connect();
    Channel channel = session.openChannel("sftp");
    System.out.println("Getting connected");
    channel.connect();
    System.out.println("connected successfully");
    ChannelSftp sftpChannel = (ChannelSftp) channel;
    sftpChannel.get("remotefile.txt", "localfile.txt");
    sftpChannel.exit();
    session.disconnect();
}catch (JSchException e) {

    e.printStackTrace();

}catch (SftpException e) {

    e.printStackTrace();
}

kindly include the print stack trace in the post – Visruth Mar 11 '13 at 06:50 — Visruth, Mar 11 '13 at 06:50

score 34 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 11 '13 at 06:33

34

I guess that your key is not in OpenSSH key file format. JSch expects the private key to be in OpenSSH format.

You can use PuTTYgen to convert your private key to work with OpenSSH by following the steps described here:

Press Load and select the Private Key that was created with PuTTYgen.
Enter the passphrase to load the key.
From the Conversions menu select export OpenSSH key
Save the private key.

answered Mar 11 '13 at 06:33

rgerganov

2,182
21
20

Thanks a lot for your response. After converting to OpenSSH (using your steps), I am able to connect to server. Highly appreciate your support. – Virgo_The_Perfectionist Mar 11 '13 at 19:50
@rgerganov Can JSch support reading private key in SSH2 format? – yapkm01 Jun 12 '15 at 04:37
you saved my day! JSch needs the private key in OpenSSH key file format. – user1561521 Jun 17 '15 at 23:47
doing openssl rsa -in id_rsa -out id_rsa.decrpt , then using id_rsa.decrpt as the privateKey works as we.. – Jeryl Cook Jul 18 '16 at 21:36
1

I think Java questions should not have Windows-only answers. – Rob N May 25 '20 at 21:34
Actually JSch does support .ppk key files (though it may have problems with keys generated with some specific versions of PuTTYgen). – Martin Prikryl Aug 20 '20 at 12:19

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 04 '14 at 15:00

5

Perhaps not a solution for you, but I found this question when I searched for my issue.

I had accidentally given the path to the public keyfile when JSCH expected the private keyfile.

answered Mar 04 '14 at 15:00

jontejj

2,800
1
25
27

a very relevant observation. This was my case, too. – Newton fan 01 Dec 21 '17 at 11:49

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 29 '14 at 12:00

You can use PEMWriter to convert your private key to PEM format that will be accepted by JSch

The following example converts a key returned from Java KeyStore (JKS)

Key privateKey = KeyStore.getKey(privateKeyAlias, keyStorePassword);//get key from JKS
StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();
PEMWriter pemWriter = new PEMWriter(stringWriter);
pemWriter.writeObject(privateKey);
pemWriter.close();

byte[] privateKeyPEM = stringWriter.toString().getBytes();

Visruth · Answer 4 · 2015-07-02T17:58:44.460

The following example code may help you.

package ssh.control;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Properties;

import android.util.Log;

import com.jcraft.jsch.ChannelExec;
import com.jcraft.jsch.JSch;
import com.jcraft.jsch.Session;


public class SSHConnections {
    static String user="";
    static String pass="";
    static String ip="";


    static Session session;

    public static ChannelExec getChannelExec() throws Exception{
        //System.out.println("connected");
        //This class serves as a central configuration point, and as a factory for Session objects configured with these settings.
        JSch jsch = new JSch();
        //A Session represents a connection to a SSH server.
        session = jsch.getSession(user, ip, 22);
        //getSession()   :-  the session to which this channel belongs. 
        session.setPassword(pass);

        // Avoid asking for key confirmation
        //http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/util/Properties.html
        Properties prop = new Properties();
        prop.put("StrictHostKeyChecking", "no");


        //Sets multiple default configuration options at once. 
        session.setConfig(prop);

        session.connect();
        if(session.isConnected()) {
            System.out.println("connected");
        }

        // SSH Channel 
        //Opens a new channel of some type over this connection. 
        ChannelExec channelssh = (ChannelExec) session.openChannel("exec");

        return channelssh;
    }

    public static  String[] executeRemoteCommand(String command) throws Exception {

        ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        ChannelExec channelssh = SSHConnections.getChannelExec();
        channelssh.setOutputStream(baos);

        // Execute command
        channelssh.setCommand(command);//gedit tt
        InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(channelssh.getInputStream());

        BufferedReader bufred = new BufferedReader(isr);

        channelssh.connect();
        String s = bufred.readLine();

        List<String> lines = new ArrayList<String>();

        int count = 0;
        while( s!=null ) {
            //System.out.println(s);
            lines.add(count,s);
            //      filesandfolders[count]=s;
            //      System.out.println(filesandfolders[count]);
            s = bufred.readLine();  
            count++;
        }

        String filesandfolders[] = new String[count];

        for(int i = 0; i<count;i++) {
            filesandfolders[i] = lines.get(i);
            Log.d("filesandfolders[i]", filesandfolders[i]);
        }
        //for(int j=0;j<filesandfolders.length;j++) {
        //System.out.println(filesandfolders[j]);
        //}
        //System.out.println("lines is "+lines.get(0));
        //int a;
        //while((a = isr.read()) != -1)
        //System.out.print((char)a);
        //channelssh.disconnect();
        //return baos.toString();
        return filesandfolders;
    }

    public static  List<String> executeRemoteCommand1(String command) throws Exception {
        ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        ChannelExec channelssh=SSHConnections.getChannelExec();
        channelssh.setOutputStream(baos);

        // Execute command
        channelssh.setCommand(command);//gedit tt
        InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(channelssh.getInputStream());

        BufferedReader bufred = new BufferedReader(isr);

        channelssh.connect();
        String s = bufred.readLine();

        List<String> lines = new ArrayList<String>();

        int count=0;
        while(s != null) {
            //System.out.println(s);
            lines.add(count, s);
            //      filesandfolders[count] = s;
            //      System.out.println(filesandfolders[count]);
            s = bufred.readLine();  
            count++;
        }

        String filesandfolders[] = new String[count];

        for(int i=0; i<count;i++) {
            filesandfolders[i]=lines.get(i);
        }
        //for(int j=0;j<filesandfolders.length;j++) {
        //System.out.println(filesandfolders[j]);
        //}
        //System.out.println("lines is "+lines.get(0));
        //int a;
        //while((a = isr.read()) != -1)
        //System.out.print((char)a);
        //channelssh.disconnect();
        //return baos.toString();
        return lines;
    }
}

To make a directory :

SSHConnections.user = "username";
SSHConnections.ip = "192.168.1.102";
SSHConnections.pass = "mypassword";
ChannelExec channelssh = SSHConnections.getChannelExec();

String dirname = "sampledirectory";
try {
    String[] str = SSHConnections.executeRemoteCommand("mkdir "+dirname);
} catch (Exception e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 20 '20 at 12:11

I bumped into same issue while using ppk to ssh using JSch. This might work for someone.

While using the ppk file from Putty it used to work. But using the same with JSch, it used to throw this exception.

I tried a couple of solutions. Finally i just loaded the ppk file to PuTTYgen and Save Private Key which generated similar looking (in text editor) file but it worked.

Press 'Load' and select the ppk file
Enter the passphrase
Click on 'Save private key' button just below Load option and save the private key

JSCH - Invalid private key

5 Answers5

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