Solving Git Permission Denied (Public Key) Error on Windows

As a developer, I've encountered my fair share of frustrating errors while working with Git. One such error that had me stumped was the 'Permission denied (public key)' message when trying to clone or pull from GitHub. After hours of troubleshooting and following various online instructions, I finally discovered the solution.

The root cause of this issue is that Git for Windows uses its own version of OpenSSH, which is different from the one used by the Windows SSH-agent service. This means that Git cannot read your private keys, even if they are correctly set up on your local machine.

To resolve this issue, you need to ensure that you have the correct access rights and that Git is using the correct OpenSSH executable. You can do this by checking which version of OpenSSH is being used by Git and making sure it matches the one installed on your system.

Another possible solution that is not well-documented online is to check which keys have been authorized on your GitHub or GitLab account settings. If you have generated a SSH public/private key pair set before, but haven't added it to your account, this could be causing the error.

To add your key to your account, you can follow these steps:

1. Go to your GitHub or GitLab account settings.

2. Click on 'SSH keys' and then 'Add new SSH key'.

3. Paste in the contents of your public key file (id_rsa.pub).

4. Save the changes.

Once you've added your key to your account, you should be able to clone and checkout without any issues.

If you're still encountering problems, there are a few more steps you can take to troubleshoot the issue. You can try running `git config --global user.email` to check if your email address is correctly set up. Don't forget to restart your command line to ensure that the changes take effect.

You can also use the following commands to copy your public key to the clipboard:

* On Windows (Powershell): Get-Content id_rsa.pub | Set-Clipboard

* On Windows (via Cygwin/Git Bash): cat id_rsa.pub | clip

Once you've copied your public key to the clipboard, you can paste it into your GitHub or GitLab account settings to complete the setup.

In conclusion, the 'Permission denied (public key)' error when using Git on Windows is often caused by a mismatch between the OpenSSH versions used by Git and the Windows SSH-agent service. By checking which version of OpenSSH is being used by Git and adding your public key to your GitHub or GitLab account settings, you should be able to resolve this issue and start working with Git again.

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