ED25519 and ECDSA for NX protocol produce “Authentication Failed” error

[Britgirl]

Thanks for the report. We’ll get it checked out to make sure it’s updated if necessary.

[Tor]

While editing the Trouble Report with the recommendation submitted by @neatchee I noticed that there are some additional questions we can ask to collect details for the debugging, so here they are:

• Besides the key type security concerns, we assumed that the RSA key login is still working correctly. Could we get a confirmation?
• Where are the ED25519 and ECDSA key files located on disk? Did you maybe try to move them in different system folders (e.g. $HOME, tmp/, .nx/) to verify if anything changes?
• Are key access permissions correct, so both folder and file can be accessed by the user starting the player process?
• Can you share any of the key pairs not working, so we can test them in our labs? You can contact us at forum[at]nomachine[dot]com.

Thank you for helping us to debug this mysterious issue!

[neatchee]

• yes, RSA keys still work
• I have tried placing the keys in multiple locations, being careful to ensure proper permissions/access. On Windows, this is typically C:\Users\someUser\.ssh OR E:\.ssh. Those directories are owned by my Windows user. But I’ve also tried the base user home directory itself and other locations owned by my user
• You can find a known failing key pair in this comment (note the key password in the post body text): https://forum.nomachine.com/topic/ed25519-and-ecdsa-for-nx-protocol-produce-authentication-failed-error#post-50602

Let me know if you have additional questions or would like me to reattempt any specific tests. Happy to help!

[Tor]

For some reasons, the key attached to the post is not valid, I’m getting these outputs when testing it with openssh 9.6p1

ssh-keygen -l -f testkeyfornomachine
256 SHA256:eWl6FVVBI16fflrvux+rY0JgcV0bQmeKaTdktJi0RGQ “TestKeyForNoMachine” (ED25519)

ssh-keygen -y -f testkeyfornomachine
Load key "testkeyfornomachine": invalid format

If you run the same commands on your end, do you get anything different?

[neatchee]

Well, now I’m really confused.

I know that key validated successfully in the past.
So I tried myself. Got the same error you’re seeing, both on Windows and in Ubuntu.

Okay, I’ll generate new keys, test that the issue repros, and send those along…

…Well, now I can’t reproduce the issue anymore.

I’m on Enterprise Client 8.16.1 and ed25519 keys are now loading fine and I’m able to connect to all my devices.

Not just with a new key, either. *My normal ED25519 key that I’ve had for many months, and which was DEFINITELY not working before, now works just fine.*

I’m … really confused. But it’s working so…hooray????

[Tor]

All’s well that ends well! 😀 Kidding aside though, there must be a reason somehow connected to your ssh tools and I would not exclude that it’ll happen again in future. We’re here to assist you in that case. Long live the keys!

[Author]

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