Bug Description

When creating an SSH Private Key credential, pasting a multi-line private key (OpenSSH format) into the Private Key field silently strips all newlines. The field is defined with password: true, which renders <input type="password"> instead of <textarea>, and HTML password inputs don't preserve newlines. The stored key becomes a single line. formatPrivateKey tries to fix it by splitting on ----- and replacing \s+ with \n, but the base64 body has no whitespace → stays one line → ssh2 can't parse it. Error in the UI: "Couldn't connect with these settings"
Error in the logs: error:1C80006B:Provider routines::wrong final block length

To Reproduce

1. n8n → Credentials → Add New → SSH Private Key
2. Fill Host, Port, Username
3. Paste a multi-line OpenSSH key into Private Key
4. Click Test → "Couldn't connect with these settings" Fix Option A (simplest): Remove password: true from the privateKey field definition. The field has rows: 4 → renders as <textarea> which preserves newlines. Option B: Fix formatPrivateKey to insert \n every 64 chars in the base64 body.

Expected behavior

Connection estabilishedwhen correct values are provided

Debug Info

Debug info

core

• n8nVersion: 2.21.7
• platform: docker (self-hosted)
• nodeJsVersion: 24.15.0
• nodeEnv: production
• database: postgres
• executionMode: scaling (single-main)
• concurrency: -1
• license: enterprise (production)
• consumerId: e8db9cb3-4d3a-410d-83da-3474a3391f09

storage

• success: all
• error: all
• progress: false
• manual: true
• binaryMode: database

pruning

• enabled: true
• maxAge: 336 hours
• maxCount: 10000 executions

client

• userAgent: mozilla/5.0 (windows nt 10.0; win64; x64) applewebkit/537.36 (khtml, like gecko) chrome/148.0.0.0 safari/537.36 edg/148.0.0.0
• isTouchDevice: false

cluster

• instanceCount: 3
• versions: 2.21.7
• instances:
  • instanceKey: a26ea3cc-0242-447e-81e9-bad237ff33da, hostId: worker-1af927d6b189, instanceType: worker, instanceRole: unset, version: 2.21.7
  • instanceKey: e5ae352d-db6a-4cdd-8a61-2ccc54a9a807, hostId: worker-9a812388552b, instanceType: worker, instanceRole: unset, version: 2.21.7
  • instanceKey: 41f6634b-ae48-46ef-905a-441a0925301b, hostId: main-bfd69e2ae9a9, instanceType: main, instanceRole: leader, version: 2.21.7
• checks:
  • check: hostid-clash, status: succeeded, warnings: -
  • check: lifecycle, status: succeeded, warnings: -
  • check: split-brain, status: succeeded, warnings: -
  • check: version-mismatch, status: succeeded, warnings: -

Generated at: 2026-05-23T13:57:39.285Z

Operating System

Ubuntu

n8n Version

2.21.7

Node.js Version

22

Database

SQLite (default)

Execution mode

main (default)

Hosting

n8n cloud