Yep, this is the reason. I have many different identity key files in my ~/.ssh folder, and for some reason ssh always tries all of those first, then exhausts the login tries and doesn’t ask for a password.
I have the same problem when I specify a specific private key file with -i ./path/to/priv.key. If that key is different than the ones in my .ssh folder, it will use all those first before the specified one, and often exhausts login attempts giving a very hard to diagnose login failure. In that case I need -o IdentitiesOnly yes option to tell ssh to only use the one I specified.
Yep, this is the reason. I have many different identity key files in my ~/.ssh folder, and for some reason ssh always tries all of those first, then exhausts the login tries and doesn’t ask for a password.
I have the same problem when I specify a specific private key file with
-i ./path/to/priv.key. If that key is different than the ones in my .ssh folder, it will use all those first before the specified one, and often exhausts login attempts giving a very hard to diagnose login failure. In that case I need-o IdentitiesOnly yesoption to tell ssh to only use the one I specified.