title: SVN+SSH checkout over VPN using tortoise SVN, Smartsvn failing
body: <p><strong>System &amp; connection details</strong>  </p>
  
  <p>I am using a 64-bit system running Windows 7. I have Open VPN and Tortoise SVN 64-bit installed.</p>
  
  <p>The repository is in a remote system, and we connect using VPN. </p>
  
  <p><strong>What I have done so far</strong>  </p>
  
  <p>I have followed the necessary steps to initiate the VPN connection - </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Added some project specific config files inside the config folder of the Open VPN installation path. Took these files from working setup of team members.</li>
  <li>Initiated Open VPN connection using a user.</li>
  <li>ran Putty's Pageant.exe, selected the .ppk file and entered the pass phrase.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Everything fine upto here.</p>
  
  <p>Then I went to the local directory and tried to checkout the remote repository URL using Tortoise SVN. But it throws the following error - </p>
  
  <p><strong>Checkout Failed</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>To better debug SSH connection problems, remove the -q option from 'ssh' in the [tunnels] section of your Subversion configuration file.
  Network connection closed unexpectedly
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Following are contents of the [tunnels] section of my Subversion config file - </p>
  
  <pre><code>### Section for configuring tunnel agents.
  [tunnels]
  ### Configure svn protocol tunnel schemes here.  By default, only
  ### the 'ssh' scheme is defined.  You can define other schemes to
  ### be used with 'svn+scheme://hostname/path' URLs.  A scheme
  ### definition is simply a command, optionally prefixed by an
  ### environment variable name which can override the command if it
  ### is defined.  The command (or environment variable) may contain
  ### arguments, using standard shell quoting for arguments with
  ### spaces.  The command will be invoked as:
  ###   &lt;command&gt; &lt;hostname&gt; svnserve -t
  ### (If the URL includes a username, then the hostname will be
  ### passed to the tunnel agent as &lt;user&gt;@&lt;hostname&gt;.)  If the
  ### built-in ssh scheme were not predefined, it could be defined
  ### as:
  # ssh = $SVN_SSH ssh
  ### If you wanted to define a new 'rsh' scheme, to be used with
  ### 'svn+rsh:' URLs, you could do so as follows:
  # rsh = rsh
  ### Or, if you wanted to specify a full path and arguments:
  # rsh = /path/to/rsh -l myusername
  ### On Windows, if you are specifying a full path to a command,
  ### use a forward slash (/) or a paired backslash (\\) as the
  ### path separator.  A single backslash will be treated as an
  ### escape for the following character.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is this the section referred to in the error? <strong>I can't see any <code>-q</code> option there</strong>. What should be done now. </p>
  
  <p>Note - I had posted the same question on Superuser too - <a href="https://superuser.com/q/295439/50101">https://superuser.com/q/295439/50101</a> . I did not get any answers there. Let me know if that should be deleted/closed. </p>
  
  <p><strong>Update</strong><br>
  I tried with Smartsvn 6. 
  While Openvpn gui is running and putty pageant is running, I selected "public/private-key authentication", selected the .ppk file and entered the pass phrase. 
  I get this error - </p>
  
  <pre><code>An error occurred while processing an SVN command 
  File '\path\to\key-file.ppk' is not a valid OpenSSH DSA or RSA private key file.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Any ideas? Why this error? How could this be fixed or any pointers? Teammates have a 32-bit system running Windows xp and they are able to checkout. Whereas me and another new member have a 64-bit system running Windows 7, facing the same problem. </p>
  
  <p><strong>Further Details</strong><br>
  The repository URL used to take checkout is like svn+ssh://@...com/var/svn/reposito‌​ries//</p>
  
  <p>Teammates never generated any further keys or anything. They simply put some files into their open VPN config folder (some .ppk, .key, .crt and some open vpn config files).</p>
  
  <p><strong>Update 3</strong><br>
  While generating RSA/DSA key using puttygen, there are 3 options under "type of key to generate" -> 1. <code>SSH-1(RSA)</code> 2. <code>SSH-2 RSA</code> 3. <code>SSH-2 DSA</code>. I selected <code>SSH-1(RSA)</code>. clicked on save private key. Then again followed the same steps to take checkout. I also selected <code>Tortoise SVN</code>-> <code>settings</code>-> <code>Network</code> -> <code>SSH Client</code> -> browsed the <code>pageant.exe</code> file there. Still unsuccessful with checkout-> prompts "Couldn't load this key (unable to open file)" and then the same error - </p>
  
  <pre><code>To better debug SSH connection problems, remove the -q option from 'ssh' in the [tunnels] section of your Subversion configuration file.
  Network connection closed unexpectedly
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>Update 4</strong><br>
  One new teammate (working on exactly a system, 64-bit running windows 7, same as me)  has successfully checked out from the remote server. Please check this question for further details <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6776118/proper-way-to-debug-svnssh-checkout-over-vpn-failure-how-to-compare-with-a-work">Proper way to debug SVN+SSH checkout over VPN failure? How to compare with a working setup?</a></p>