"Invalid privatekey" when using JSch

o_b7 :

I'm using the following code to work with Git in a Java application. I have a valid key (use it all the time), and this specific code has work for me before with the same key and git repository, but now I get the following exception:

invalid privatekey: [B@59c40796.

At this line:

jSch.addIdentity("<key_path>/private_key.pem");

My full code:

    String remoteURL = "ssh://git@<git_repository>";
    TransportConfigCallback transportConfigCallback = new SshTransportConfigCallback();
    File gitFolder = new File(workingDirectory);
    if (gitFolder.exists()) FileUtils.delete(gitFolder, FileUtils.RECURSIVE);

    Git git = Git.cloneRepository()
            .setURI(remoteURL)
            .setTransportConfigCallback(transportConfigCallback)
            .setDirectory(new File(workingDirectory))
            .call();
}


private static class SshTransportConfigCallback implements TransportConfigCallback {
    private final SshSessionFactory sshSessionFactory = new JschConfigSessionFactory() {
        @Override
        protected void configure(OpenSshConfig.Host hc, Session session) {
            session.setConfig("StrictHostKeyChecking", "no");
        }

        @Override
        protected JSch createDefaultJSch(FS fs) throws JSchException {
            JSch jSch = super.createDefaultJSch(fs);
            jSch.addIdentity("<key_path>/private_key.pem");

            return jSch;
        }
    };

After searching online, I've change createDefaultJSch to use pemWriter:

@Override
protected JSch createDefaultJSch(FS fs) throws JSchException {
    JSch jSch = super.createDefaultJSch(fs);
    byte[] privateKeyPEM = null;

    try {
        KeyFactory keyFactory = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA");

        List<String> lines = Files.readAllLines(Paths.get("<my_key>.pem"), StandardCharsets.US_ASCII);
        PKCS8EncodedKeySpec privSpec = new PKCS8EncodedKeySpec(Base64.getDecoder().decode(String.join("", lines)));
        RSAPrivateKey privKey = (RSAPrivateKey) keyFactory.generatePrivate(privSpec);

        PKCS8Generator pkcs8 = new PKCS8Generator(privKey);

        StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
        PemWriter pemWriter = new PemWriter(writer);
        pemWriter.writeObject(pkcs8);

        privateKeyPEM = writer.toString().getBytes("US-ASCII");

    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    jSch.addIdentity("git", privateKeyPEM, null, null);

    return jSch;
}

But still getting "invalid privatekey" exception.

Natan :

I also stumbled upon this issue. running Jgit on mac, for some users we saw the following exception:

org.eclipse.jgit.transport.JschConfigSessionFactory.getSession(JschConfigSessionFactory.java:160)
    at org.eclipse.jgit.transport.SshTransport.getSession(SshTransport.java:137)
    at org.eclipse.jgit.transport.TransportGitSsh$SshFetchConnection.<init>(TransportGitSsh.java:274)
    at org.eclipse.jgit.transport.TransportGitSsh.openFetch(TransportGitSsh.java:169)
    at org.eclipse.jgit.transport.FetchProcess.executeImp(FetchProcess.java:136)
    at org.eclipse.jgit.transport.FetchProcess.execute(FetchProcess.java:122)
    at org.eclipse.jgit.transport.Transport.fetch(Transport.java:1236)
    at org.eclipse.jgit.api.FetchCommand.call(FetchCommand.java:234)
    ... 17 more
Caused by: com.jcraft.jsch.JSchException: invalid privatekey: [B@e4487af
    at com.jcraft.jsch.KeyPair.load(KeyPair.java:664)
    at com.jcraft.jsch.KeyPair.load(KeyPair.java:561)
    at com.jcraft.jsch.IdentityFile.newInstance(IdentityFile.java:40)
    at com.jcraft.jsch.JSch.addIdentity(JSch.java:407)
    at com.jcraft.jsch.JSch.addIdentity(JSch.java:367)
    at org.eclipse.jgit.transport.JschConfigSessionFactory.getJSch(JschConfigSessionFactory.java:276)
    at org.eclipse.jgit.transport.JschConfigSessionFactory.createSession(JschConfigSessionFactory.java:220)
    at org.eclipse.jgit.transport.JschConfigSessionFactory.createSession(JschConfigSessionFactory.java:176)
    at org.eclipse.jgit.transport.JschConfigSessionFactory.getSession(JschConfigSessionFactory.java:110)

The root cause was discovered to be the ssh private key mismatch. The exception only happened for users with key of newer kind ed25519, which outputs this key header:

-----BEGIN OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----

instead of kind RSA:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

regenerating an RSA key (ssh-keygen -t rsa), made the exception go away.

Edit following comments: If you have OpenSSH 7.8 and above you might need to add -m PEM to the generation command: ssh-keygen -t rsa -m PEM