Understanding and Resolving the "No Identities Found" Error
Now that we have our SSH keys in place, let's understand why the "no identities found" error occurs and how to fix it.
Common Causes of the Error
The "no identities found" error typically occurs for one of these reasons:
- SSH keys do not exist
- SSH keys are not in the default location
- SSH keys have incorrect permissions
- The
ssh-copy-id
command cannot find any public keys to use
Since we've already confirmed our SSH keys exist in the default location, let's check the permissions.
Checking and Fixing SSH Key Permissions
SSH is very particular about file permissions for security reasons. Run the following command to check the permissions of your .ssh
directory and its contents:
ls -la ~/.ssh
For proper security:
- The
.ssh
directory should have permissions 700 (rwx------)
- The private key (
id_rsa
) should have permissions 600 (rw-------)
- The public key (
id_rsa.pub
) should have permissions 644 (rw-r--r--)
If your permissions are incorrect, you can fix them with the following commands:
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
chmod 644 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
Using ssh-copy-id Correctly
Now let's try to use the ssh-copy-id
command properly. The correct syntax is:
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub username@remote_host
Where:
-i
specifies the identity file (public key) to use
username
is your username on the remote server
remote_host
is the hostname or IP address of the remote server
For our lab environment, we will simulate this by using the local machine. Run:
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub labex@localhost
You will be prompted for the password of the remote user. In a real environment, you would enter that password, and the public key would be copied to the remote server.
If you see a message like "Number of key(s) added: 1", then your key was successfully copied.
Troubleshooting When the Error Persists
If you still get the "no identities found" error, you can explicitly specify the path to your public key:
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub labex@localhost
If the error persists, it might be that your SSH agent is not running or your key hasn't been added to it. You can check this with:
ssh-add -l
If it says "The agent has no identities," you can add your key:
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Now try the ssh-copy-id
command again:
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub labex@localhost
By following these steps, you should be able to resolve the "no identities found" error and successfully copy your SSH key to the remote server.