Re: sign_and_send_pubkey: signing failed: agent refused operation

[Jim Wilson <jimw@sifive.com>]

On Mon, Jun 1, 2020 at 3:33 PM Martin Sebor via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:
> So it sounds like you wouldn't expect the "agent refused operation"
> error either, and it's not just a poor error message that I should
> learn to live with.  That makes me think I should try to figure out
> what's wrong.  I think the ~/.ssh/ contents are pretty standard:

My experience with Ubuntu 18.04 is that 2K bit keys aren't accepted by
something (gnome UI?) anymore.  I had to upgrade to 4K bit keys.
Though oddly ssh-keygen still generates 2K bit keys by default even
though they won't be accepted by the gnome UI (or whatever).  The work
around is to run ssh-add manually to register your 2K bit key, because
ssh-add will still accept 2K bit keys, and then ssh will work, and can
be used to install a 4K bit public key on the other side, and then
things will work normally again.  A web search suggested that there
was some security problem with 2K bit keys and apparently they are
trying to force people to upgrade, but the inconsistent approach here
between different packages makes this confusing as to what is actually
going on.

Jim