Fix "Permission denied (publickey)" error when pushing with Git

publickey-git-error.markdown

"Help, I keep getting a 'Permission Denied (publickey)' error when I push!"

This means, on your local machine, you haven't made any SSH keys. Not to worry. Here's how to fix:

1. Open git bash (Use the Windows search. To find it, type "git bash") or the Mac Terminal. Pro Tip: You can use any *nix based command prompt (but not the default Windows Command Prompt!)
2. Type cd ~/.ssh. This will take you to the root directory for Git (Likely C:\Users\[YOUR-USER-NAME]\.ssh\ on Windows)
3. Within the .ssh folder, there should be these two files: id_rsa and id_rsa.pub. These are the files that tell your computer how to communicate with GitHub, BitBucket, or any other Git based service. Type ls to see a directory listing. If those two files don't show up, proceed to the next step. NOTE: Your SSH keys must be named id_rsa and id_rsa.pub in order for Git, GitHub, and BitBucket to recognize them by default.
4. To create the SSH keys, type ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "[email protected]". This will create both id_rsa and id_rsa.pub files.
5. Now, go and open id_rsa.pub in your favorite text editor (you can do this via Windows Explorer or the OSX Finder if you like, typing open . will open the folder).
6. Copy the contents--exactly as it appears, with no extra spaces or lines--of id_rsa.pub and paste it into GitHub and/or BitBucket under the Account Settings > SSH Keys. NOTE: I like to give the SSH key a descriptive name, usually with the name of the workstation I'm on along with the date.
7. Now that you've added your public key to Github and/or BitBucket, try to git push again and see if it works. It should!

More help available from GitHub on creating SSH Keys and BitBucket Help.

Thank you! This was very helpful & idiot-proof

Here's how you can proceed:

Check for SSH keys in PowerShell:
Run the following command to check the contents of the .ssh directory:

Get-ChildItem -Path $env:USERPROFILE\.ssh

1. Copy the SSH public key:
   To copy the public key to the clipboard, run the following command in PowerShell:
   powershell
   Get-Content $env:USERPROFILE\.ssh\id_rsa.pub | clip
   This will copy the contents of your public key (id_rsa.pub) to your clipboard.

2. Add the SSH key to your GitHub account:
   Go to GitHub and sign in.
   Navigate to Settings by clicking your profile picture at the top-right, then click SSH and GPG keys from the left sidebar.
   Click New SSH key.
   In the "Title" field, you can enter something like "My PC SSH Key".
   Paste the SSH key (copied in step 1) into the "Key" field.
   Click Add SSH key.

3. Test the SSH connection:
   After adding the key to GitHub, test the connection by running this command in PowerShell:

bash
ssh -T [email protected]
You should see a message like this:

Hi username! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.
4. Clone the repository using SSH:
Now you can clone the repository using the SSH URL:

bash
git clone [email protected]:your-username/your-repository.git
This should resolve the "Permission denied (publickey)" issue.

Many Thanks

Excellent