ssh keys (was symbol's value as variable is void: allow-remote-paths)

[Mike Kupfer]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> steven Mitchell writes:

>  > on that too.  I created an account, but when I try to upload an ssh
>  > key they will not take one I created by copy/pasting it in and when
>  > I browse to it instead of pasting, it does not take that ssh key
>  > either and says invalid key both times.
> 
> That was a pain in the neck.  I think it's a browser issue in part.
> 
> What I ended up doing was copy/pasting, and doing a little bit of
> editing to get rid of (1) a leading space (I have no idea where that
> came from), (2) a trailing newline because I dragged too far when
> highlighting the region, and (3) some backslashes that came from the
> terminal to indicate a wrapped line.  

We ran into similar problems with users registering their ssh keys on
opensolaris.org.  The main problem was extra, usually trailing,
whitespace.  I think we added a note to the web page warning people to
check for, and delete, extra whitespace.  That seemed to reduce the
number of emails about ssh problems.  (For XEmacs, we might only be able
to add a note to xemacs.org, where we point people at Bitbucket.)  We
could also add a warning about copying multiple lines at once from a
terminal emulator.  (I avoid copying from an emulator, precisely because
of newlines and Emacs line-wrap characters getting introduced.)

> But browsing to the file didn't
> work, even trying several different files (maybe there were trailing
> newlines in them, I didn't check to see if I could force Bitbucket to
> take a file).  I haven't tried to document it because it seems to work
> for other people and I don't understand what went wrong.

By "browsing to the file", do you mean the "Choose key" button in the
user profile page?  I couldn't get that to work at all.  I click on the
button and nothing happens. *shrug*

>  > So when I get past "something so small as the allow-remote-paths"
>  > problem, I will be working on learning some about ssh keys and what
>  > makes one created on my machine be declared invalid. Are there
>  > different kinds/levels?

(For Steven M.)  Yes.  There are different encryption algorithms, and
it's important to know the difference between public and private keys.
If you're not familiar with public key cryptography, the Wikipedia
page[1] and HowStuffWorks page[2] both look decent.  That'll give you
some general background.  Then I recommend reviewing Bitbucket's SSH
Help page[3] if you haven't already.

mike

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography

[2]  http://computer.howstuffworks.com/encryption3.htm

[3]  http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/BITBUCKET/Using+SSH+to+Access+your+Bitbucket+Repository