Repair the permissions of the .ssh directory and files

The best practice configuration for the personal .ssh directory is to restrict all access to the corresponding local user. This will be enforced by OpenSSH and any misconfiguration will result in OpenSSH ignoring the .ssh directory contents with a warning.

This PowerShell script automatically repairs the permissions of the .ssh directory and files. It does the following for all items within and including the given .ssh directory:

• Disables inheritance
• Sets ownership to one user
• Removes all permissions
• Grants one user full control

Installation

Download and unpack the latest release to your machine.

Usage

Open a PowerShell console at the location of the unpacked release and execute the ./repair_ssh_permissions.ps1.

Hint: If you are running into an SeSecurityPrivilege error execute the command with administrator privileges.

Examples

Repair the current users default .ssh directory

Execute the following command to repair the '%USERPROFILE%/.ssh' directory (and all items within) for the current Windows user.

.\repair_ssh_permissions.ps1

Note

The script will automatically elevate itself to administrator privileges.

Repair a specific .ssh directory for a specific user

Execute the following command with to repair a specific directory for a specific local Windows user.

.\repair_ssh_permissions.ps1 -path "X:\unsual\path\to\.ssh" -user "John Doe"

Get detailed help

Execute the following command to get detailed help.

Get-Help .\repair_ssh_permissions.ps1 -detailed