VSCode remote developement using ssh with passphrase protected ssh-key

Question

I have a remote ssh server on which I want to do remote developement.
My public key is added to the authorized keys on the server and my private key is passphrase protected.

I added the remote host as described here using ssh user@host -i ~/.ssh/key

But whenever I try to open a new VSCode window on the remote host it fails and I see in the log that the connection timed out, which is expected because I don't get asked for my private-key passphrase.

I read this post on remote development using ssh and I searched on google but couldn't find any hints to what I could do to enable/enter ssh-key passphrase while connecting to remote host.

I know I can connect to the remote using a non-passphrase-protected key but I'm not asking for that, I want to know if it's possible to connect to a remote host from VSCode using a passphrase protected key.

VonC · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-03 08:15:27Z

4

If your key is not the default one, that means you need a ~/.ssh/config entry in which you specify your SSH connection parameters:

Host myserver
  Hostname host
  User user
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/key

The Visual Studio Code Remote Development will automatically read the config file, and when you ask for opening an SSH session, you will see "myserver" entry: if you select it, the SSH session opened will use ~/.ssh/key, the right private key.

Then, as long as your ssh-agent is enabled, and you have entered at least once your passphrase (through a manual ssh myserver), VSCode will use the same agent to get the passphrase when it will need it.

edited Dec 3, 2020 at 8:15

answered Dec 3, 2020 at 7:20

VonC

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Samuel Saari · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-19 13:08:37Z

This is what solved it for me, your issue could be different.

In VScode, choose command: Remote-SSH: Open SSH Configuration File...
Choose the location that is offered to you (or create a config file without extension to desired location), for example: C:\Users\[USER_NAME]\.ssh\config. Make sure you have appropriate permissions.
Prepare you configuration file, for example

Host Custom_Name
  HostName example.server.com
  User your_user_name
  IdentityFile C:\Users\[USER_NAME]\Documents\MobaXterm\home\.ssh\id_rsa
  (or wherever you have the private key)

Finally add a custom path to your configuration file. This is what I lacked for long time

{
// add custom configuration file path
"remote.SSH.configFile": "C:\\Users\\[USER_NAME]\\.ssh\\config",

// Other settings

// omit comma after *config"* if that is your last setting
}

Now it should ask for passphrase as opposed to password.

P.S. Here is a lot of useful information with the setup, especially with the keys that I have omitted for brevity.

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