I began getting a strange error message from git earlier this week:
key_read: uudecode (random SSH key junk here) ssh-rsa (more random SSH key junk here) failed
The error message only showed up when I ran git pull. Google didn’t find much to help me, but acting on a hunch I removed the IP address of my git repo from my known hosts. The error immediately went away.
If you’re getting the same message, determine the IP address or domain name of your git repo. Search for those values in your ~/.ssh/known_hosts file and remove them. You should be good to go after that.
I expect this is related to the recent Debian vulnerability (http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/136975). Evidently your repository’s keys were regenerated to correct for the vulnerability.
[...] Intuition in problem solving, and how that may relate to superstitions Matthew Bass wrote about how a hunch led to solving an unexplained problem with git. I’ve had many similar experiences, so I commented on his blog post It’s surprising how often those hunches are right, and interesting how much we programmers do based on hunches when all else fails. Sometimes intuition comes through where careful logic falls short. [...]
It’s surprising how often those hunches are right, and interesting how much we programmers do based on hunches when all else fails. Sometimes intuition comes through where careful logic falls short.
(This sparked some more thoughts on this topic, which I’m posting on my blog.)