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I'm trying to access company's sFTP using ForkLift 3 on MacOS. I created an openSSH key pair using Terminal and the following command:

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa

Inside Terminal I opted to include a passphrase with the key pair. I saved the key pair to the default place (Users/user/.ssh/). I then sent the id_rsa.pub key to the Cloud Team who put it onto the server I'm trying to access.

My colleagues followed the same procedure and have had no problems accessing sFTP. Difference being they're on Windows, using WinSCP and a PuTTY (.ppk) key set generated by PuTTYgen. I'm using MacOS, ForkLift 3, and a key pair generated inside Terminal that is not .ppk format, though the Cloud Team said this is not an issue at all.

Having received confirmation that my public key (id_rsa.pub) file is indeed on the server I'm trying to access, I'm now using ForkLift 3 to try and connect, with the correct server name, user, private key file (id_rsa) and passphrase, but I receive this error each time:

2021-11-05 09:00:53.528 AskPassTool[67797:1017626] Can't find password for connection ID: 23645924-DE18-467A-BAEF-5BDB33936DD3

2021-11-05 09:00:53.641 AskPassTool[67798:1017634] Can't find password for connection ID: 23645924-DE18-467A-BAEF-5BDB33936DD3

2021-11-05 09:00:53.750 AskPassTool[67799:1017640] Can't find password for connection ID: 23645924-DE18-467A-BAEF-5BDB33936DD3

2021-11-05 09:00:56.024 AskPassTool[67802:1017664] Can't find password for connection ID: 23645924-DE18-467A-BAEF-5BDB33936DD3

user@server: Permission denied (publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with->mic,password,keyboard-interactive).

I can't for the life of me figure out what is wrong and why it won't connect. I'm using the same credentials as my colleagues who are able to login without fail, though I'm using a different key pair (we are all sharing a username to access the server) and passphrase attached to the key pair.

How may I go about troubleshooting this? I'm not command line savvy but have scoured StackOverflow articles and tried the following to no avail:

  1. Viewed /etc/ssh/ssh_config file to ensure PasswordAuthentication is set to "yes" (it is)
  2. Checked permissions for my public key (id_rsa.pub), private key (id_rsa), and known_hosts file inside /.ssh/
  3. Erased the known_hosts file

As I'm the only person at my company using MacOS, I've been unable to glean help internally on how to connect to sFTP using different software (Windows WinSCP vs. MacOS ForkLift 3) and style key pair (.ppk vs. openSSH).

Can someone please help and give me a sanity check?! I'm going crazy!

Thanks in advance for helping me learn.

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4
  • I don't know anything about ForkLift, but the name AskPassTool strongly suggests it is trying to get the password of your key file (which you say you set), not a password for the remote host (which is PasswordAuthentication potentially enables). You could try removing the password from your key file and see if that works -- although if it does it is less secure, which might not make your company and colleagues happy.
    – dave_thompson_085
    Commented Nov 6, 2021 at 12:45
  • 1
    Instead of Forklift , you could try using sftp from terminal - if that works you'll know you're on the right track and it's a problem with your ForkLift config. BTW, the last line of the logs you show, gives both the userid and address you're trying to connect to. Probably best not to show that info on a public forum.
    – arcdale
    Commented Nov 6, 2021 at 13:37
  • @dave_thompson_085 Thanks for the tip!
    – Birdsong
    Commented Nov 6, 2021 at 19:29
  • @arcdale Good call, and thanks for the heads up.
    – Birdsong
    Commented Nov 6, 2021 at 19:29

1 Answer 1

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-1

Had the same problem with ForkLift. Since I don't really need a password on my ssh key I removed it with ssh-keygen -p. Then ForkLift was able to connect.

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