Almost every user new to SSH hits this wall: WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE! Permissions 0644 for '/Users/.../id_rsa.pem' are too open. This private key will be ignored. They placed the key in ~/.ssh/ , entered the path into the SSH settings, and clicked Connect — only to see this. The fix is a single command ( chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pem ), which is obvious to anyone familiar with SSH but the biggest stumbling block for users who don't open a terminal . Here's the ...