I've been going through answers to similar questions on this StackExchange and on StackOverflow and reading through documentations all day ... Here's the .tf file I'm executing: # defines the AWS provider provider "aws" { # credentials path: ~/.aws/credentials profile = var.aws_profile } resource "aws_key_pair" "key_pair" { # variable's default value: "id_rsa" key_name = var.aws_key_pair_name # variable's default value: public key of "id_rsa" public_key = var.aws_key_pair_public } resource "aws_security_group" "security_group" { ingress { from_port = 22 to_port = 22 protocol = "tcp" cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"] } egress { from_port = 0 to_port = 0 protocol = "-1" cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"] } tags = { # variable's default value: "security-group-1" Name = var.aws_security_group_tags_name } } resource "aws_instance" "instance" { # variable's default value: ID of the Ubuntu AMI ami = var.aws_instance_ami # variable's default value: "t2.micro" instance_type = var.aws_instance_type associate_public_ip_address = true key_name = aws_key_pair.key_pair.key_name vpc_security_group_ids = [aws_security_group.security_group.id] tags = { # variable's default value: "ec2-instance-1" Name = var.aws_instance_tags_name } } resource "null_resource" "instance" { provisioner "remote-exec" { connection { type = "ssh" host = aws_instance.instance.public_ip # variable's default value: "ubuntu", Ubuntu AMI's default system user account user = var.aws_instance_user_name # variable's default value: "~/.ssh/id_rsa" # the path to the public key provided to aws_key_pair.key_pair private_key = file(var.aws_key_pair_private_path) timeout = "20s" } inline = ["echo 'remote-exec message'"] } provisioner "local-exec" { command = "echo 'local-exec message'" } } It's returning the following error: aws_instance.instance (remote-exec): Connecting to remote host via SSH... aws_instance.instance (remote-exec): Host: 54.82.23.158 aws_instance.instance (remote-exec): User: ubuntu aws_instance.instance (remote-exec): Password: false aws_instance.instance (remote-exec): Private key: true aws_instance.instance (remote-exec): Certificate: false aws_instance.instance (remote-exec): SSH Agent: true aws_instance.instance (remote-exec): Checking Host Key: false aws_instance.instance (remote-exec): Target Platform: unix aws_instance.instance: Still creating... [1m0s elapsed] ╷ │ Error: remote-exec provisioner error │ │ with aws_instance.instance, │ on main.tf line 63, in resource "aws_instance" "instance": │ 63: provisioner "remote-exec" { │ │ timeout - last error: SSH authentication failed ([email protected]:22): ssh: handshake failed: ssh: unable to │ authenticate, attempted methods [none publickey], no supported methods remain What am I missing? Are any parts of my code redundant?