Cannot select SSH keys for pubkey auth on Linux with KDE

[Jeffrey Walton]

Hello,

I am trying to SFTP to another box on my network. The workstation I am using is Kubuntu 20.04.4 LTS, x86_64, fully patched. Kubuntu uses KDE, and includes Filezilla 3.46.3-1build1.

My network is setup for public key authentication only. All machines have the following:

$ cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/10-pubkey_auth.conf 
# Disable passwords
PasswordAuthentication no
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no
KerberosAuthentication no
KerberosOrLocalPasswd no
GSSAPIAuthentication no
UsePAM no

# Enable public key
PubkeyAuthentication yes

I have my keys in $HOME/.ssh. I use them all the time for SSH and SCP:

$ ls ~/.ssh
authorized_keys  id_dsa      id_ecdsa      id_ed25519      id_rsa      known_hosts
config           id_dsa.pub  id_ecdsa.pub  id_ed25519.pub  id_rsa.pub

When I try to SFTP to a box with Filezilla, I am getting tripped up because the UI does not allow me to select a private key in the Browse for Key File dialog. The private keys are missing from the selection:

The dialog also does not automatically select the private key based on a selected public key. (I have to select a public key because that's the only thing displayed).

I don't know if this behavior is specific to Kubuntu, or if it is present in all Debian or Ubuntu derivatives. (This is my first time using Filezilla).

[Jeffrey Walton]

Browse for Key File dialog

[Jeffrey Walton]

This is unusual, too. When I explicitly type the filename in the Key File box, it says the private key is not a private key. The error is very unexpected.

[Jeffrey Walton]

The attached patch may help with key file envvars. I was not able to test it because I cannot get SVN trunk to configure on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, x86_64, fully patched.

[Jeffrey Walton]

Here's a related bug when trying to test an updated Filezilla client using SVN trunk on Debian: ​https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1006554.

[Tim Kosse]

We're making a small change to the file types, defaulting to * instead of *.* for the All Files filter on non-Windows systems.

One remark: Why does the file picker not have a text input box to manually input a file name? Please report this serious design deficit to the GTK+ developers, they for no reason seemed to have removed this important feature in GTK+3.