Git clone using SSH not working on windows - Received disconnect, could not read from remote repository

Question

I've done a fresh install of Git (version 2.20.1.windows.1) on a new laptop but I'm not able to clone any of my Github repositories. I've also tried Gitlab and am having the same issue.

This is the error I get when I try to clone the Github debug repository:

$ git clone git@github.com:github/debug-repo debug-repo-ssh

Cloning into 'debug-repo-ssh'...
Received disconnect from 140.82.118.4 port 22:11: Bye Bye
Disconnected from 140.82.118.4 port 22
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

Here is the output of the ssh -vT git@github.com command:

$ ssh -vT git@github.com

OpenSSH_7.9p1, OpenSSL 1.1.1a  20 Nov 2018
debug1: Reading configuration data /c/Users/Tam/.ssh/config
debug1: /c/Users/Tam/.ssh/config line 1: Applying options for github.com
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: Connecting to github.com [140.82.118.4] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /c/Users/Tam/.ssh/id_github type 0
debug1: identity file /c/Users/Tam/.ssh/id_github-cert type -1
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_7.9
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version babeld-64adca0f
debug1: no match: babeld-64adca0f
debug1: Authenticating to github.com:22 as 'git'
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: algorithm: curve25519-sha256@libssh.org
debug1: kex: host key algorithm: ssh-rsa
debug1: kex: server->client cipher: chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com MAC: <implicit> compression: none
debug1: kex: client->server cipher: chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com MAC: <implicit> compression: none
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_REPLY
Received disconnect from 140.82.118.4 port 22:11: Bye Bye
Disconnected from 140.82.118.4 port 22

It doesn't even get to the point of asking me for my passphrase.

Answer 1

Ran into the same issue on a colleagues computer. From git bash a ssh git@github.com against authenticated worked, where cloning did not. It turned out that the git clone uses plink.exe. And plink.exe uses the default SSH -> auth identity (which was set to another key) instead of the keys loaded in pageant. Removing the stored key in Putty (and saving that in the default session) made plink look for the corect key via pageant again.

Answer 2

Tried all kinds of solutions I could find online, but none of them worked, except answer from lzag.

For people too lazy to follow the link, just add

Host github.com
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/<your ssh key>

into C:\Program Files\Git\etc\ssh\ssh_config (if that’s where you installed Git)

Answer 3

I wasn't able to figure out why git's bundled ssh isn't working on my laptop, but I've found a stable workaround.

1. Installed OpenSSH for Windows (OpenSSH_for_Windows_7.7p1) from http://www.mls-software.com/opensshd.html. I've just found out that it's also available through the Windows 10 Creators Update

After installing and reopening PowerShell, running ssh -vT git@github.com asked for my passphrase and authenticated me successfully, but the git-agent command was failing. It was an error like Could not connected to the authentication agent

2. To fix the ssh-agent problem I only needed to enable the OpenSSH Authentication Agent service from services.msc. I set the launch mode to Automatic (delayed start).

That got the ssh-agent, ssh-add and ssh-add -l commands working, but git commands were still failing with exactly the same error as before.

3. To fix the final issue with the git commands, I set the SSH_GIT environment variable to the location where I installed OpenSSH. For me that is C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\ssh.exe. Here's a guide that should help.

Once I did that and restarted PowerShell, git clone and all the other commands started working.