.ssh directory permissions

I was recently setting up a new, always-on machine that I do occasional dev work. This dev work typically consists of routine maintenance and, a requirement of that, is sshing into and running software updates on manually managed servers (yes, manually managed[1]).

I sync my .ssh configuration using mackup. However, while setting up and then using a key I received a warning that my configured .ssh directory permissions were too open. If you ever run into this, the solution is fairly simple[2]:

chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 644 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Try reconnecting using the key in question and the warning should be resolved.


  1. Think small-scale WordPress or one-off projects. ↩︎

  2. Where id_rsa is your key name. ↩︎

Cory
Cory Dransfeldt

I'm a software developer in Camarillo, California. I enjoy hanging out with my beautiful family and 4 rescue dogs, technology, automation, music, writing, reading and tv and movies.