Permission denied when trying to SCP files even though SSH works fine

Alexander Gavrailov Live

10/26/22, 4:47 PM

I've SSHed successfully into a remote server and I'm trying to transfer some files between my local machine and the remote server using the SCP command.

When I try to transfer a file from the remote server to my machine while logged in the remote server I get a permission denied error:

alexa@server:~/project$ scp alexa@server:~/project/requirements.txt /mnt/c/Users/Alexa/Desktop/
alexa@server: Permission denied (publickey).

When I try to do the reverse and transfer a file from my local machine to the remote server while logged in my local machine I get this:

alexa@local:/mnt/c/Users/Alexa/Desktop/$ scp test_doc.txt alexa@server:~/project/
ssh: Could not resolve hostname server: Name or service not known
lost connection

I checked the permissions of all files and folders and alexa is the owner. Furthermore, I tried the same commands using sudo in front but the outcome was the same.

The debug shows this

debug3: authmethod_is_enabled publickey
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_rsa
debug3: no such identity: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_rsa: No such file or directory
debug1: Trying private key: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_dsa
debug3: no such identity: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_dsa: No such file or directory
debug1: Trying private key: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_ecdsa
debug3: no such identity: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_ecdsa: No such file or directory
debug1: Trying private key: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk
debug3: no such identity: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk: No such file or directory
debug1: Trying private key: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_ed25519
debug3: no such identity: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_ed25519: No such file or directory
debug1: Trying private key: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_ed25519_sk
debug3: no such identity: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_ed25519_sk: No such file or directory
debug1: Trying private key: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_xmss
debug3: no such identity: /home/alexa/.ssh/id_xmss: No such file or directory
debug2: we did not send a packet, disable method
debug1: No more authentication methods to try.
alexa@server: Permission denied (publickey).

When I checked the content of /home/alexa/.ssh/ I only see 2 files:

alexa@server:~/.ssh$ ls -la
total 16
drwx------ 2 alexa alexa 4096 Jun 26 13:12 .
drwxr-xr-x 8 alexa alexa 4096 Apr 13 18:11 ..
-rw------- 1 alexa alexa  736 Apr  1 15:53 authorized_keys
-rw-r--r-- 1 alexa alexa  444 Jun 26 12:48 known_hosts

Any ideas what's causing this?

977

0 + 3

server

ssh

permissions

user68186

10/26/22, 6:13 PM

Which distro and version of Linux are you running on the local computer and the remote server? Is the remote server a NAS? Please [edit your question](https://askubuntu.com/posts/1348366/edit) and add these information.

CrazyTux

10/26/22, 8:11 PM

To transfer files between two pc's via ssh protocol you need to check that one of your machines can connect to the other, in your case, your own pc can connect the server so all you have to do is run the command correctly, `scp your_file_path destination` and more specific `scp /home/user/path_to_file/filename username@serverip:/path_to_destination` **you should run the command from your machine that could connect to the other machine** in your case from your own pc, if your server was able to connect your own pc you could run a similar (but different) command to get the files from you pc.

steeldriver

10/26/22, 8:14 PM

Yeah it looks like you have connected to the server already via SSH and are then trying to connect to the server again via scp - the scp command that you are using should be run from the client (where you originally ssh'd from) instead

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Permission denied when trying to SCP files even though SSH works fine

TH: การอนุญาตถูกปฏิเสธเมื่อพยายามไฟล์ SCP แม้ว่า SSH จะทำงานได้ดี

RO: Permisiunea refuzată când încercați să faceți fișiere SCP, chiar dacă SSH funcționează bine

RU: Отказано в доступе при попытке доступа к файлам SCP, хотя SSH работает нормально

VI: Quyền bị từ chối khi cố gắng truy cập tệp SCP mặc dù SSH hoạt động tốt

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