[Solved] WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE!

Overview:

While working on the AWS EC2 instance, this error was introduced in Windows:

Error:

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

@         WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE!          @

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

It is required that your private key files are NOT accessible by others.

This private key will be ignored.

ubuntu@ec2-3-236-198-125.compute-1.amazonaws.com: Permission denied (publickey).

Reason:

You face this fatal error (WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE!) because the access permissions are not given to the user.

Solution:

Go to the terminal and write the following code:

$ icacls.exe your_key_name.pem /reset

$ icacls.exe your_key_name.pem /grant:r "$($env:username):(r)"

$ icacls.exe your_key_name.pem /inheritance:r

Your keys.pem will now have the same restrictions as "chmod 400" in Linux.

See you next time.

@TechAE