Joyent gives decode error on SSH key with passphrase

[Brad Crittenden]

Using a standard key generated with ssh-keygen[1], trying to bootstrap joyent gives the following error is the SSH key has a passphrase:

[review]bac@trusty64:~/projects/juju-quickstart$ juju bootstrap -e joy --upload-tools
uploading tools for series [trusty precise]
Bootstrap failed, destroying environment
ERROR Bootstrap failed, and the environment could not be destroyed: cannot retrieve instances: failed to get list of machines
caused by: An error occurred while parsing the key: asn1: structure error: tags don't match (16 vs {class:1 tag:16 length:38 isCompound:true}) {optional:false explicit:false application:false defaultValue:<nil> tag:<nil> stringType:0 set:false omitEmpty:false} pkcs1PrivateKey @2
ERROR cannot make Manta control container: failed to create directory: 812f3d5b43414f0b8bbea5eed6b08080
caused by: An error occurred while parsing the key: asn1: structure error: tags don't match (16 vs {class:1 tag:16 length:38 isCompound:true}) {optional:false explicit:false application:false defaultValue:<nil> tag:<nil> stringType:0 set:false omitEmpty:false} pkcs1PrivateKey @2
[review]bac@trusty64:~/projects/juju-quickstart$ juju version
1.17.8-trusty-amd64
[review]bac@trusty64:~/projects/juju-quickstart$ which juju
/home/bac/work/bin/juju
[review]bac@trusty64:~/projects/juju-quickstart$ which juju-local
/home/bac/work/bin/juju-local

Ensuring the key was added to the ssh-agent yielded the same result.

Removing the passphase from the key and trying again was successful.

Juju's documentation for the Joyent provider should note this restriction. juju-core could examine the SSH private key to determine if it is encrypted and provide a better error message that points to the proper user action.

[1] ssh-keygen -b 2048 -t rsa