[git] How can I remove an SSH key?

I currently have an old SSH key uploaded on a server. The problem is I lost my ~/.ssh directory (with the original id_rsa and id_rsa.pub files).

Consequently, I want to remove the old SSH key directly on the server and upload a new one.

I tried the following command without success:

$> ssh-add -D

Is there a way to completely remove an SSH key?

If you're trying to perform an SSH-related operation and get the following error:

$ git fetch
no such identity: <ssh key path>: No such file or directory

You can remove the missing SSH key from your SSH agent with the following:

$ eval `ssh-agent -s`  # start ssh agent
$ ssh-add -D <ssh key path>  # delete ssh key

The solution for me (openSUSE Leap 42.3, KDE) was to rename the folder ~/.gnupg which apparently contained the cached keys and profiles.

After KDE logout/logon the ssh-add/agent is running again and the folder is created from scratch, but the old keys are all gone.

I didn't have success with the other approaches.

I can confirm that this bug is still present in Ubuntu 19.04 (Disco Dingo). The workaround suggested by VonC worked perfectly, summarizing for my version:

• Click on Activities tab on top left corner
• On the search box that comes up, begin typing "startup applications"
• Click on the "Startup Applications" icon
• On the box that pops up, select the gnome key ring manager application (can't remember the exact name on the GUI but it is distinctive enough) and remove it.

Next, I tried ssh-add -D again, and after reboot ssh-add -l told me The agent has no identities. I confirmed that I still had the ssh-agent daemon running with ps aux | grep agent. So I added the key I most frequently used with GitHub (ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa) and all was good!

Now I can do the normal operations with my most frequently used repository, and if I occasionally require access to the other repository which uses the RSA key, I just dedicate one terminal for it with export GIT_SSH_COMMAND="ssh -i /home/me/.ssh/id_rsa.pub". Solved! Credit goes to VonC for pointing out the bug and the solution.

Check if folder .ssh is on your system

1. Go to folder --> /Users/administrator/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

If not, then

2. Open Terminal.

Paste in the terminal

3. Check user ? ssh -T [email protected]

Remove existing SSH keys

4. Remove existing SSH keys ? rm ~/.ssh/github_rsa.pub

Create New

5. Create new SSH key ? ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[email protected]"

6. The public key has been saved in "/Users/administrator/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub."

7. Open the public key saved path.

8. Copy the SSH key ? GitLab Account ? Setting ? SSH Key ? Add key

9. Test again from the terminal ? ssh -T [email protected]

I opened "Passwords and Keys" application in my Unity and removed unwanted keys from Secure Keys -> OpenSSH keys And they automatically had been removed from ssh-agent -l as well.

Unless I'm misunderstanding, you lost your .ssh directory containing your private key on your local machine and so you want to remove the public key which was on a server and which allowed key-based login.

In that case, it will be stored in the .ssh/authorized_keys file in your home directory on the server. You can just edit this file with a text editor and delete the relevant line if you can identify it (even easier if it's the only entry!).

I hope that key wasn't your only method of access to the server and you have some other way of logging in and editing the file. You can either manually add a new public key to authorised_keys file or use ssh-copy-id. Either way, you'll need password authentication set up for your account on the server, or some other identity or access method to get to the authorized_keys file on the server.

ssh-add adds identities to your SSH agent which handles management of your identities locally and "the connection to the agent is forwarded over SSH remote logins, and the user can thus use the privileges given by the identities anywhere in the network in a secure way." (man page), so I don't think it's what you want in this case. It doesn't have any way to get your public key onto a server without you having access to said server via an SSH login as far as I know.