Connect to Host with VSCode using the private key

Question

I want to connect to a remote server, I know the username and hostname, and I also have the private_key.pem file. How can I connect to this virtual machine using VSCode?

I get this error with the solutions on the internet, and that's reasonable because I have not imported this private_key.pem file anywhere, and I do not know how.

Permission denied (publickey)

Thanks for your help.

I use windows, but the remote machine is ubuntu.

Answer 1

Set the config path to the new config file

The file config_aws2 is like below

Host 18.abc.xyz
  HostName 18.abc.xyz
  User ec2_user
  IdentityFile C:/Users/dcnha/Desktop/nha/dance_motion/aws/AIkey.pem

set the permission of the .pem file only for your current user (Windows, https://youtu.be/kzLRxVgos2M), using chmod for Linux

When this dialogue show up, do not click the 18.abc, instead type in ec2_user@18.abc.xyz

Answer 2

Some other things to check on Winows:

On File explorer, for both:

• ~/.ssh directory
• ~/.ssh/id_rsa

remove permissions for everyone except yourself with:

• Properties
• Security
• Edit

And also ensure that ~/.ssh/config contains:

Host myhostname
  HostName myhostname
  User myusername

Tested on Windows 10, vscode 1.78.

Answer 3

You can add the private key by following the below steps:

1. Open VSCode
2. Press F1 and search for "Remote-SSH: Open Configuration File"
3. Select the config file to edit and add the new server and private key

   Host *name-of-ssh-host-here*
   User *your-user-name-on-host*
   HostName *host-fqdn-or-ip-goes-here*
   IdentityFile *C:\\path\\to\\my\\id_rsa*
   

   For the IdentityFile specify the path of your private key. For Windows make sure to use double slashes.

Reference