Permission denied (publickey) when deploying heroku code. fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

Question

I'm attempting to deploy my code to heroku with the following command line: ``` git push heroku master ``` but get the following error: ``` Permission denied (publickey). fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly ``` I have already uploaded my public SSH key, but it still comes up with this error.

Accepted Answer

You have to upload your public key to Heroku:

```
heroku keys:add ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
```

If you don't have a public key, Heroku will prompt you to add one automatically which works seamlessly. Just use:

```
heroku keys:add
```

To clear all your previous keys do :

```
heroku keys:clear
```

To display all your existing keys do :

```
heroku keys
```

EDIT:

The above did not seem to work for me. I had messed around with the `HOME` environment variable and so SSH was searching for keys in the wrong directory.

To ensure that SSH checks for the key in the correct directory do :

```
ssh -vT git@heroku.com
```

Which will display the following ( Sample ) lines

```
OpenSSH_4.6p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8e 23 Feb 2007
debug1: Connecting to heroku.com [50.19.85.156] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /c/Wrong/Directory/.ssh/identity type -1
debug1: identity file /c/Wrong/Directory/.ssh/id_rsa type -1
debug1: identity file /c/Wrong/Directory/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version Twisted
debug1: no match: Twisted
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_4.6
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: server->client aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none
debug1: kex: client->server aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none
debug1: sending SSH2_MSG_KEXDH_INIT
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEXDH_REPLY
debug1: Host 'heroku.com' is known and matches the RSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /c/Wrong/Directory/.ssh/known_hosts:1
debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /c/Wrong/Directory/.ssh/identity
debug1: Trying private key: /c/Wrong/Directory/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Trying private key: /c/Wrong/Directory/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: No more authentication methods to try.
```

`Permission denied (publickey).`

From the above you could observe that ssh looks for the keys in the `/c/Wrong/Directory/.ssh` directory which is not where we have the public keys that we just added to heroku ( using `heroku keys:add ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub` ) ( Please note that in windows OS `~` refers to the `HOME` path which in win 7 / 8 is `C:\Users\UserName` )

To view your current home directory do : `echo $HOME` or `echo %HOME%` ( Windows )

To set your `HOME` directory correctly ( by correctly I mean the parent directory of `.ssh` directory, so that ssh could look for keys in the correct directory ) refer these links :

SO Answer on how to set Unix environment variable permanently

SO Question regarding ssh looking for keys in the wrong directory and a solution for the same.

Permission denied (publickey) when deploying heroku code. fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

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