Testing your SSH connection

After you've set up your SSH key and added it to GitHub, you can test your connection.

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Before testing your SSH connection, you should have already:

You'll need to authenticate this action using your password, which is the SSH key passphrase you created earlier. See Working with SSH key passphrases.

Note

This article contains commands or examples that use the github.com domain. You might access GitHub at a different domain, such as octocorp.ghe.com.

  1. Open TerminalTerminalGit Bash.

  2. Enter the following:

    Shell
    ssh -T git@github.com
# Attempts to ssh to GitHub

    You may see a warning like this:

    > The authenticity of host 'github.com (IP ADDRESS)' can't be established.
> ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:+DiY3wvvV6TuJJhbpZisF/zLDA0zPMSvHdkr4UvCOqU.
> Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

  3. Verify that the fingerprint in the message you see matches GitHub's public key fingerprint. If it does, then type yes:

    > Hi USERNAME! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not
> provide shell access.

    You may see this error message:

    ...
Agent admitted failure to sign using the key.
debug1: No more authentication methods to try.
Permission denied (publickey).

    This is a known problem with certain Linux distributions. For more information, see Error: Agent admitted failure to sign.

    Note

    The remote command should exit with code 1.

  4. Verify that the resulting message contains your username. If you receive a "permission denied" message, see Error: Permission denied (publickey).