I'm trying to set up a ssh remote on Android using the latest 5.20140421. For some
reason the assistant fails to set up passwordless login on the remote server. It
adds the required line in .ssh/authorized_keys on the server side, but it still
keeps asking for the password for every connection. Nothing suspicious appears in
the assistant's log. Also, if I set up a ssh remote on a different directory on the
same server, a new key is generated and added to authorized_keys, but the passwordless
login still doesn't work.
I didn't file a bug since this would make for a very lousy bug report. How could I look more into what's causing this? Where should the generated keys reside on the Android filesystem?
I think it would be useful for the assistant to check that the generated ssh keys are working properly, and inform the user and/or try to set them up again if there is a problem, instead of silently falling back to asking for the login password on the console.
There have been recent improvements in the assistant's handling of ssh keys. This includes no more prompting for ssh keys in the console, ever. Instead, the ssh remote setup would presumably fail if the ssh key didn't work for some reason.
To debug your problem, you need to use the shell. I would first try running "git annex get" or "git annex copy" or "git annex drop" on a file, and verify that it prompts for the ssh password. Then, take a look at /sdcard/git-annex.home/.ssh/config, and see if you can ssh to the special hostname set up there, from android, and if it asks for a password. If so, ssh -v might be interesting, as it should show it presenting the ssh key to the server.