Git SSH error: "Connect to host: Bad file number"

Question

I followed the git guide but I have this strange issue when trying to connect to github:

$ ssh -v [email protected]
OpenSSH_4.6p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8e 23 Feb 2007
debug1: Reading configuration data /c/Documents and Settings/mugues/.ssh/config
debug1: Applying options for github.com
debug1: Connecting to github.com [207.97.227.239] port 22.
debug1: connect to address 207.97.227.239 port 22: Attempt to connect timed out without establishing a connection
ssh: connect to host github.com port 22: Bad file number

This is my config file under .ssh

Host github.com
    User git
    Hostname github.com
    PreferredAuthentications publickey
    IdentityFile "C:\Documents and Settings\mugues\.ssh\id_rsa"
    TCPKeepAlive yes
    IdentitiesOnly yes

Any idea?

Answer 1

After having this problem myself, I found a solution that works for me:

Error message:

    ssh -v [email protected]
    OpenSSH_5.8p1, OpenSSL 1.0.0d 8 Feb 2011
    debug1: Connecting to github.com [207.97.227.239] port 22.
    debug1: connect to address 207.97.227.239 port 22: Connection timed out
    ssh: connect to host github.com port 22: Connection timed out
    ssh: connect to host github.com port 22: Bad file number

You will only see the bad file number message when on windows using the MINGGW shell. Linux users will just get Timed out.

Problem:

SSH is probably blocked on port 22. You can see this by typing

    $nmap -sS github.com -p 22
    Starting Nmap 5.35DC1 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2011-11-05 10:53 CET
    Nmap scan report for github.com (207.97.227.239)
    Host is up (0.10s latency).
    PORT   STATE    SERVICE
    22/tcp ***filtered*** ssh

    Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 2.63 seconds

As you can see the state is Filtered, which means something is blocking it. You can solve this by performing an SSH to port 443 (your firewall / isp will not block this). It is also important that you need to ssh to "ssh.github.com" instead of github.com. Otherwise, you will report to the webserver instead of the ssh server. Below are all the steps needed to solve this problem.

Solution:

(First of all make sure you generated your keys like explained on http://help.github.com/win-set-up-git/)

create file ~/.ssh/config (ssh config file located in your user directory. On windows probably %USERPROFILE%\.ssh\config

Paste the following code in it:

    Host github.com
    User git
    Hostname ssh.github.com
    PreferredAuthentications publickey
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
    Port 443

Save the file.

Perform ssh like usual:

$ssh -T github.com 
    $Enter passphrase for key '.......... (you can smile now :))

Note that I do not have to supply the username or port number.

Answer 2

The key information is written in @Sam's answer but not really salient, so let's make it clear.

"Bad file number" is not informative, it's only a sign of running git's ssh on Windows.

The line which appears even without -v switch:

ssh: connect to host (some host or IP address) port 22: Bad file number

is actually irrelevant.

If you focus on it you'll waste your time as it is not a hint about what the actual problem is, just an effect of running git's ssh on Windows. It's not even a sign that the git or ssh install or configuration is wrong. Really, ignore it.

The very same command on Linux produced instead this message for me, which gave an actual hint about the problem:

ssh: connect to host (some host or IP address) port 22: Connection timed out

Actual solution: ignore "bad file number" and get more information

Focus on lines being added with -v on command line. In my case it was:

debug1: connect to address (some host or IP address) port 22: Attempt to connect timed out without establishing a connection

My problem was a typo in the IP address, but yours may be different.

Is this question about "bad file number", or about the many reasons why a connection could time out ?

If someone can prove that "bad file number" only appears when the actual reason is "connection time out" then it makes some sense to address why connection could time out.

Until that, "bad file number" is only a generic error message and this question is fully answered by saying "ignore it and look for other error messages".

EDIT: Qwertie mentioned that the error message is indeed generic, as it can happen on "Connection refused" also. This confirms the analysis.

Please don't clutter this question with general hints and answer, they have nothing to do with the actual topic (and title) of this question which is "Git SSH error: “Connect to host: Bad file number”". If using -v you have more informative message that deserve their own question, then open another question, then you can make a link to it.

Answer 3

This worked for me:

ssh -v [email protected] -p 443

Answer 4

Maybe your firewall or a blocker application (PeerBlock etc.) is blocking your port

Answer 5

You can also try to:

telnet example.com 22

to see if you have connectivity to the server. I saw this message and it ended up being the VPN I was on was blocking access. Disconnected from the VPN and I was good to go.

Answer 6

What I found is that, this happens when your connection is poor. I had it a few minutes ago when pushing to my repo, it kept failing and a while after that, the connection went down.

After it came back up, the push immediately went through.

I believe it can be caused by either a drop in connection from either your side or theirs.

Answer 7

If SSH is blocked over 22

just update your origin to https

git remote set-url origin https://github.com/ACCOUNT_NAME/REPO_NAME.git

verify that changes were made

git remote -v

Answer 8

Try to quit the git bash instance through which you made the setup and try reopening. It eventually worked for me.

Answer 9

I just had the same problem and tried every solution that I could find, but none worked. Eventually, I tried quitting Git Bash and re-opening it, and everything worked perfectly.

So, try quitting Git Bash and re-opening it.

Answer 10

On windows I tried to do quit git bash and re-run but didn't work, finally me(frustated) did a restart and it worked the next time :)

Answer 11

Double check that you have published your public keys through your GitHub Administration interface.

Then make sure port 22 isn't somehow blocked (as illustrated in this question)

Answer 12

In my case the IP address of our git host had changed.

Simply flushing the DNS cache fixed the problem.

Answer 13

Creating the config file to use port 443 didn't work for me. Finally I tried to turn off my wifi connection, turn it on again and the problem disappeared. Weird. Silly solution but it may help someone :)

Answer 14

Check your remote with git remote -v Something like ssh:///gituser@myhost:/git/dev.git

is wrong because of the triple /// slash

Answer 15

I saw this issue when I access bitbucket in corporate network, while git works fine in home network.

$ git pull
ssh: connect to host bitbucket.org port 22: Bad file number
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

I used https protocol to workaround this.

$ git pull https://[email protected]/myaccount/myrepo.git
Password for 'https://[email protected]':

Please use corresponding words to replace "myaccount" and "myrepo".

Answer 16

The following solution worked for me when tried to SSH into to AWS EC2 Ubuntu instance from my Windows 7 (32 Bit) PC behind corporate firewall setting up Proxy-

Add the following block to C:\Users\<YOUR_WINDOWS_USER>\.ssh\config file-

> Host *
>      ProxyCommand "C:/Program Files/Git/mingw32/bin/connect.exe" -H <YOUR_PROXY_SERVER_HOST>:<YOUR_PROXY_SERVER_PORT> %h %p
>      IdentityFile "<PATH_OF_YOUR_IDENTITY_FILE>"
>      TCPKeepAlive yes
>      IdentitiesOnly yes
>     
>     Host <SERVER_HOST_NAME_OR_IP_YOU_WANT_TO_SSH_INTO>
>      Port <SERVER_HOST_PORT_YOU_WANT_TO_SSH_INTO>
>      Hostname <SERVER_HOST_NAME_OR_IP_YOU_WANT_TO_SSH_INTO>

You will need to add similar configuration per host that you want to SSH into.

Answer 17

I had the problem when I had an open FileZilla-Connection on Windows. Closed FileZilla -> Problem solved.

Answer 18

This is the simple solution for saving some typing you can use the following steps in git bash easily..

(1) create the remote repository

git remote add origin https://{your_username}:{your_password}@github.com/{your_username}/repo.git

Note: If your password contains '@' sign use '%40' instead of that

(2) Then do anything you want with the remote repository

ex:- git push origin master

Answer 19

In my case simply restarting the WiFi router helped.