Public Key Authentication Failed

[DratRat847]

I have read easily over 150+ web results and tried at least 30+ methods for resolving my issue. After what is now 12-14 hours of struggling to no avail, I'm seeking help.

I have a CentOS (OpenSSH) virutal server from GoDaddy. Latest version of SecureCRT.

I've created keys using SSH (ssh-keygen) command, WHM GUI, SecureCRT's creation, and PuTTY. Uploaded them to ~/.ssh or copied from there. Made sure they match to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. I've 'chmod 700 ~/.ssh' and 'chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. I've attempted other methods as well. Most recently 'restorecon -r' or whatever it was. My brain is pretty much dead at this point and I've spent about my whole weekend trying to figure out my problem.

I'm willing to start over from scratch and figure out how to fix this. Please and thank you for any help!

[bgagnon]

Hello DratRat847,

I am sorry to hear of the difficulties you have experienced.

I have a CentOS (OpenSSH) virutal server from GoDaddy. Latest version of SecureCRT.

By I have a CentOS virtual server, do you mean that is the remote server you are trying to connect and authenticate to?

Or is SecureCRT installed on this virtual server?

Putty's keys won't work, but the ones created via ssh-keygen or in SecureCRT should be fine although I don't understand the procedure you say you followed:

Uploaded them to ~/.ssh or copied from there. Made sure they match to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.

If the CentOS virtual server is the remote server, assuming OpenSSH is running on that server, the public-key file will need appended to the authorized_keys file. See the SecureCRT Help topic Secure Connections / Public-Key Authentication for SSH2 / Configure OpenSSH to Recognize Your Public-Key File.

If the CentOS virtual server is instead where SecureCRT is installed and running, then that is when the keypair you created needs to be located in ~/.ssh and the remote server will *still* need to be configured with the public-key file (per above reference).