I had git working before on /var/html/projectfolder and realized it was a security risk so I made a new folder /projects from the root folder and tried to replicate what I did and now it doesnt work. Here is the backlog of what I did for my local machine and EC2 - server Server-EC2 1.I added my public key to the authorized_user file in ~/.ssh folder 2.Create a bare repository git init --bare 3.Change folder permissions to sudo chgrp -R ec2-user * sudo chmod -R g+ws * Local Machine create a local repository with git init touch, add, commit readme file pointed origin master to ec2 via git remote add origin ssh://ec2-user@remote-ip/path/to/folder This is my output: Permission Denied (publickey) fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly