How to fix buffer_get_ret: trying to get more bytes 4 than in buffer

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I got this error after adding new user to the system (CentOS). The user key is generated using PuTTY Key Generator (PuTTYgen for short).

Exact error (in /var/log/secure):

...
Apr  3 08:57:13 hostname sshd[28041]: error: buffer_get_ret: trying to get more bytes 4 than in buffer 0
Apr  3 08:57:13 hostname sshd[28041]: fatal: buffer_get_int: buffer error
Apr  3 08:58:23 hostname sshd[29722]: error: buffer_get_ret: trying to get more bytes 4 than in buffer 0
Apr  3 08:58:23 hostname sshd[29722]: fatal: buffer_get_int: buffer error
Apr  3 08:59:20 hostname sshd[30331]: error: buffer_get_ret: trying to get more bytes 4 than in buffer 0
Apr  3 08:59:20 hostname sshd[30331]: fatal: buffer_get_int: buffer error
...

Check your SSH key for extra line.

It should be someting like this:

ssh-rsa xipHymgupZdTaSvXsO2uAJ8fGvyx6kTkO/lIqF6fOayYnllq9Vf4DX9XRaUH8tCN34Vu7jJi5ZjuHe35xipHymgupZdTaSvXsO2uAJ8fGvyx6kTkOID735f2myg90XQDJRwRL5PtU0HJKM7dlJ33$
rsa-key-20100403

Not like this:

ssh-rsa
xipHymgupZdTaSvXsO2uAJ8fGvyx6kTkO/lIqF6fOayYnllq9Vf4DX9XRaUH8tCN34Vu7jJi5ZjuHe35xipHymgupZdTaSvXsO2uAJ8fGvyx6kTkOID735f2myg90XQDJRwRL5PtU0HJKM7dlJ33$
rsa-key-20100403

Notice the hard return after ssh-rsa.

The key was copy-pasted from PuTTYgen to nano. Apparently, PuTTYgen add extra hard return after ssh-rsa, see screenshot:

buffer_get_ret trying to get more bytes 4 than in buffer 0 buffer error

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/24/2010 - 16:17

Thanks, that solved my problem!

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 07/25/2010 - 00:28

Great Solution
Thank You!

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 10/02/2010 - 18:50

OMFG. That was easy. Between permissions and that return from my client-side pub key... I always have a hell of a time getting keys to run smoothly.

Here are the permissions I have used for my .ssh dir:

drwx------ 8 owner group 272 Sep 29 13:17 .
drwxr-xr-x 38 owner group 1292 Oct 2 04:47 ..
-rwx------ 1 owner group 2472 Dec 14 2009 authorized_keys
-rwx------ 1 owner group 1227 Mar 30 2010 config
-rw------- 1 owner group 1675 Dec 12 2009 id_rsa
-rw-r--r-- 1 owner group 417 Dec 12 2009 id_rsa.pub
-rwx------ 1 owner group 18317 Oct 2 04:23 known_hosts
-rw-r--r-- 1 owner group 45 Mar 16 2010 ssh_config

Submitted by Costin on Thu, 02/03/2011 - 23:35

thanks. that really bugged me for some time. it really helped alot your how to ;)

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 16:37

It works WP

Submitted by Carlos G on Wed, 03/30/2011 - 22:19

Thanks! This fixed my problem.

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/30/2011 - 02:34

Thanks this helped me.

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