I'm trying to get some blogging software up on an organizational remote server. I tried to set up a SSH Key but was having problems and decided that getting the blog up and running was more important than dealing with the SSH Key issue, so I ssh-keygen -R remoteserver.com. Now I can successfully login with ssh -v [email protected] and the correct password. Once logged in I can move around and read any file and directory that I should be able to read. But when I try to edit an existing -rw-r--r-- file with VIM, it shows up as read-only, if I try to edit permissions I get chmod: file.ext: Operation not permitted, and if I try to scp a new file from my local machine I'm prompted for the remote user's password, and then get scp: /home/path/to/file.ext: Permission denied. Since I didn't have any of these problems before I tried to set up the ssh key, I suspect these anomalies are a side effect of that, but I don't know how to troubleshoot this. So what does a foolish server-newb, such as myself, need to do to get edit capability back as a remote user? Addendum 1: My userids are different between my local machine and the remote server. For ssh I ssh -v [email protected]. if I whoami I get remoteuser For scp I scp file.ext [email protected]:/path/to/file.ext from the local directory with file.ext while logged in as the local user. if I whoami I get localuser The ls -l for two different files I've tried scp: -rw-r--r--@ 1 localuser localgroup 20 Feb 11 21:03 phpinfo.php -rw-r--r-- 1 root localgroup 4 Feb 11 22:32 test.txt The ls -l for the file I've tried to VIM: -rw-r--r-- 1 remoteuser remotegroup 76 Jul 27 2009 info.txt Addendum 2: In the past I've set up ssh-keys for git repositories. I don't want to completely destroy them, so in an attempt to follow a deer's train of thinking I renamed my ~/.ssh/ to ~/.ssh-bak/, then tested the different types of access. The abridged version of the terminal commands and results is below; I think everything is working until the 8th line from the end. localcomputer:~ localuser$ ssh -v [email protected] OpenSSH_5.2p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8l 5 Nov 2009 debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config debug1: Connecting to remoteserver.com [###.###.###.###] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug1: identity file /Users/localuser/.ssh/identity type -1 debug1: identity file /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_rsa type -1 debug1: identity file /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_dsa type -1 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.8p2 FreeBSD-20110503 debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.8p2 FreeBSD-20110503 pat OpenSSH* debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.2 debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY The authenticity of host 'remoteserver.com (###.###.###.###)' can't be established. RSA key fingerprint is ##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##. Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes Warning: Permanently added 'remoteserver.com,###.###.###.###' (RSA) to the list of known hosts. debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password debug1: Next authentication method: publickey debug1: Trying private key: /Users/localuser/.ssh/identity debug1: Trying private key: /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_rsa debug1: Trying private key: /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_dsa debug1: Next authentication method: password [email protected]'s password: debug1: Authentication succeeded (password). debug1: channel 0: new [client-session] debug1: Requesting [email protected] debug1: Entering interactive session. Last login: Sun Feb 12 18:00:54 2012 from 68.69.164.123 FreeBSD 6.4-RELEASE-p8 (VKERN) #1 r101746: Mon Aug 30 10:34:40 MDT 2010 [remoteuser@remoteserver /home]$ ls -l total ### -rw-r--r-- 1 remoteuser remotegroup 76 Aug 12 2009 info.txt [remoteuser@remoteserver /home]$ vim info.txt ~ {at the bottom of the VIM screen it tells me it's [read only]} [remoteuser@remoteserver /home]$ whoami remoteuser [remoteuser@remoteserver /home]$ logout debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype exit-status reply 0 debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype [email protected] reply 0 debug1: channel 0: free: client-session, nchannels 1 Connection to remoteserver.com closed. Transferred: sent 3872, received 12496 bytes, in 107.4 seconds Bytes per second: sent 36.1, received 116.4 debug1: Exit status 0 localcomputer:localdirectory name$ scp -v phpinfo.php [email protected]:/home/www/remotedirectory/phpinfo.php Executing: program /usr/bin/ssh host remoteserver.com, user remoteuser, command scp -v -t /home/www/remotedirectory/phpinfo.php OpenSSH_5.2p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8l 5 Nov 2009 debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config debug1: Connecting to remoteserver.com [###.###.###.###] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug1: identity file /Users/localuser/.ssh/identity type -1 debug1: identity file /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_rsa type -1 debug1: identity file /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_dsa type -1 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.8p2 FreeBSD-20110503 debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.8p2 FreeBSD-20110503 pat OpenSSH* debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.2 debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY debug1: Host 'remoteserver.com' is known and matches the RSA host key. debug1: Found key in /Users/localuser/.ssh/known_hosts:1 debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password debug1: Next authentication method: publickey debug1: Trying private key: /Users/localuser/.ssh/identity debug1: Trying private key: /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_rsa debug1: Trying private key: /Users/localuser/.ssh/id_dsa debug1: Next authentication method: password [email protected]'s password: debug1: Authentication succeeded (password). debug1: channel 0: new [client-session] debug1: Requesting [email protected] debug1: Entering interactive session. debug1: Sending command: scp -v -t /home/www/remotedirectory/phpinfo.php Sending file modes: C0644 20 phpinfo.php Sink: C0644 20 phpinfo.php scp: /home/www/remotedirectory/phpinfo.php: Permission denied debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype exit-status reply 0 debug1: channel 0: free: client-session, nchannels 1 debug1: fd 0 clearing O_NONBLOCK debug1: fd 1 clearing O_NONBLOCK Transferred: sent 1456, received 2160 bytes, in 0.6 seconds Bytes per second: sent 2322.3, received 3445.1 debug1: Exit status 1