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I've been working on moving my backup scheme from plain old FTP to SFTP (over SSH).  So far, I have been able to:

• Generate the keys on my home Mac
• Install them on the server I will be FTPing to
  • After this was done, I disabled authentication using passwords
• I am able to authenticate to the server from multiple points, using the keys in place of a password:
  • Home Mac via SSH
  • Home Mac via Cyberduck FTP
  • Remote / Office PC using PuttyFTP

So I know at this point SSH works with key authentication from multiple sources.  So far, so good.

For my site on SiteGround, I have done the following:

• Created a folder outside of the web structure called "ssh"
• Uploaded the public and private keys to this folder
• Set permissions to 600 on both files
• Created a new profile in Akeeba Backup to test the configuration
• Set the Host, Port, Username, Password (used in the key), and the path to the Private and Public keys, as well as the Initial Directory

When I test the connection, I get the following message:

Cannot log in to SFTP server using key files [username:private_key_file:public_key_file:password] = 
(Username):/home/customer/www/madalynmckay.com/akeeba/ssh/id_rsa:/home/customer/www/madalynmckay.com/akeeba/ssh/id_rsa.pub:(Key Password)

I know the key works, because I can successfully use it from multiple other locations.  SSH2 is enabled in PHP, and I've checked and re-checked the path and permissions on the two Key files.  Any guidance as to why the keys may be rejected?

The ticket information has been edited by Geoffrey Schaller (GJSchaller).

I did use RSA - I didn't specify that in my original ticket, but yes (I did read the docs first! :-), it's a standard RSA 4096 bit key.  Password for the key is in the Password field.

I'll check with SiteGround, I wasn't sure if this was already a known issue with them or not.

I opened a ticket with SiteGround, and they were able to confirm that from the command line on my server, they could successfully log into my remote server using the keys.  So we know that SSH in general works from SG to my server.

Tonight when I'm home, I will set up a key without a password, and see if that works.

Got home and tested using a key without a password - same result:

Cannot log in to SFTP server using key files [username:private_key_file:public_key_file:password] = 
(Username):/home/customer/www/madalynmckay.com/akeeba/ssh/id_rsa:/home/customer/www/madalynmckay.com/akeeba/ssh/id_rsa.pub:(Key Password)

What's damning about this is I can connect fine from multiple other sources (home, my office, and from the SiteGround server itself), the only thing that seems to fail is the Akeeba Backup option.

Let me try from a different host, and see if the issue persists there, too - I can try from both a Joomla and a WP site on a different server / host.

As a sanity test, I enabled Password-based authentication (not using keys) on my remote server, and tried to connect from the WP install on the SG server.  I was able to connect without issue.

The issue only exists for key-based authentication.

OK, I finally figured it out!

EDIT: No, I was in the wrong window.  Still working on this.  The perils of having more than one WP site open in different tabs...

Let me ask to be sure - on the SiteGround server, what should the permissions and owner / group be on the key files?

At the moment, they are 644 and owned by the user that the account is associated with:

baseos | [email protected]:~/www/madalynmckay.com/akeeba/ssh$ ls -l

total 8

-rw-r--r-- 1 u1157-ghdhaikgegzl u1157-ghdhaikgegzl 3454 Jul 28 00:39 madalynmckay

-rw-r--r-- 1 u1157-ghdhaikgegzl u1157-ghdhaikgegzl  757 Jul 28 00:39 madalynmckay.pub

Nicholas, I am not trying to fight with you or tell you you are wrong.  I get that all day from my own end users.  I wouldn't wish it on anyone else.

There's something I am missing, that I don't understand, and I am looking for help in trying to find it and fix it.  I know your code works, and I am not blaming you or your product.  I'm trying to narrow down what the mystery is, so we can fix it.

We know the code works.

We know that SSH works, both from other systems and from the SiteGround server.

We know that SSH from SiteGround to the remote server works when using a password instead of a SSH key.

We know the keys work on other systems.

The settings look correct, from what I can see, unless there's something I am not seeing in a path or permission.

It looks like for some reason Akeeba can't access the keys properly, or is otherwise failing when trying to use them.  That's what I am trying to narrow down.

I'll keep digging on the paths, and see if that makes a difference.  I suspect that's where the issue lies.

I was able to get it to work.  The change I had to make was to use "Upload to Remote SFTP (SSH) server using cURL" instead of the option without cURL.  Once I did that, it worked flawlessly.

For documentation purposes, for anyone else using SiteGround, a screenshot of the settings are attached.  Note that I created the "Akeeba" directory and "ssh" directory under it myself, they are not defaulted on SiteGround.  (This is in keeping with the recommendation of keeping the working directory outside of the website itself).

Nicholas, thank you for your help and guidance.  That is not sarcastic or snark, that is me being honest.  I don't know why the non-cURL method would fail while cURL did, but you helped me eliminate pirces of the puzzle until that was one of the only variables left to test.