Rclone cannot access SSH private key : permission denied

Help and Support
1

Hello,

I am using the snap version of rclone v1.73.0 on a raspberry 3.

I have set a remote which uses SSH. It does not use ssh agent, I rather entered the paths to the private and public keys. The remote points to a server over the Internet which I can otherwise access with SSH command.

When I want to test my remote, I have the following:

fal33@PI3-FAL33:~/.ssh$ rclone ls myremote:
2026/02/11 10:38:17 CRITICAL: Failed to create file system for "myremote:": failed to read private key file: open /home/fal33/.ssh/id_(redacted): permission denied
fal33@PI3-FAL33:~/.ssh$

I tried changing the private key and .ssh folder permissions to 777, but still the same.

Additional info :

fal33@PI3-FAL33:~/.ssh$ rclone version
rclone v1.73.0

  • os/version: ubuntu 24.04 (64 bit)
  • os/kernel: 6.8.0-1031-raspi (aarch64)
  • os/type: linux
  • os/arch: arm64 (ARMv8 compatible)
  • go/version: go1.25.6
  • go/linking: static
  • go/tags: snap
    fal33@PI3-FAL33:~/.ssh$

fal33@PI3-FAL33:~/.ssh$ rclone config redacted
[myremote]
type = sftp
host = XXX
user = XXX
port = <xxx, different from 22>
key_file = /home/fal33/.ssh/id_
pubkey_file = /home/fal33/.ssh/id_.pub

Double check the config for sensitive info before posting publicly

fal33@PI3-FAL33:~/.ssh$

fal33@PI3-FAL33:~/.ssh$ rclone -vv ls myremote:

2026/02/11 10:46:29 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.73.0" starting with parameters ["/snap/rclone/571/bin/rclone" "-vv" "ls" "myremote:"]
2026/02/11 10:46:29 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "myremote:"
2026/02/11 10:46:29 DEBUG : Using config file from "/home//snap/rclone/571/.config/rclone/rclone.conf"
2026/02/11 10:46:29 CRITICAL: Failed to create file system for "myremote:": failed to read private key file: open /home/fal33/.ssh/id_: permission denied**
fal33@PI3-FAL33:~/.ssh$

Configuration file content:

[myremote]
type = sftp
host = <xxx, IPV4 format>
user =(user)
port = <xxx, different from 22>
key_file = /home/fal33/.ssh/id_
pubkey_file = /home/fal33/.ssh/id_.pub

2

That’s got really nothing to do with rclone, but everything to do with snap.

If you decide to do a snap install, you can’t read anything else in your directories as that what snap does.

Snaps operate in a secure, isolated environment (sandboxing) which, by default, prevents them from accessing hidden files and directories in your home folder, including the ~/.ssh directory and your SSH keys. This is an intentional security feature.

3

Thanks very much.

I uninstall the snap version and installed the deb version, and it works.