New Post: PrivateKeyAuthentication from Stream

Those are some good reads, I appreciate the info. StackOverflow (SOF) is pretty good too, they usually have a decent response rate to questions. I tried using the different methods listed, but all came short for the same reason. I'm assuming because they still are not set to return a 'file (path)' format, but are set to return the content of a file instead. According to the documentation, the source of SSH.NET, the 'open' method requires a local file.

So what is happening is the file is never downloaded to the client in a file format, merely strings. Using the last example, WebClient, I can 'GET' the file, and store it as a string, but I have no method to conver the string to a 'path_to_a_file'....or do I? =)

Here is an example for the last one I tried from the SOF, WebClient:

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            
            try
            {
                //CREDENTIALS
                var webClient = new WebClient();
                string myKey = webClient.DownloadString("https://10.1.1.45/pk.php?pk=joes_pk");
                string hostname = "10.1.1.10";
                int port = 22;
                string username = "unix_username";


                //Objects INIT
                PrivateKeyFile privatekey = new PrivateKeyFile(myKey);
                SshClient client = new SshClient(hostname, port, username, privatekey);
                client.Connect();

                            //RUN command
                if (client.IsConnected)
                {
                    string cmd = "ls -la";
                    MessageBox.Show("Conected! Running " + cmd);
                    var output = client.RunCommand(cmd);
                    MessageBox.Show(output.Result.ToString() + " Will disconnect now...");
                    client.Disconnect();
                }
                
            }
            catch (Exception exc)
            {
                MessageBox.Show("Error on connection:" + exc.Message.ToString() + ":" + exc.StackTrace.ToString());
            }
        }

So it throws this expected error:

System.ArgumentException was caught
  Message=Illegal characters in path.
  Source=mscorlib
  StackTrace:
       at System.IO.Path.CheckInvalidPathChars(String path)
       at System.IO.Path.GetFileName(String path)
       at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share)
       at System.IO.File.Open(String path, FileMode mode)
       at Renci.SshNet.PrivateKeyFile..ctor(String fileName)
       at RCERTPCDC.RencieTest.button1_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) in C:\Users\~\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\Test\RencieTest.cs:line 40
  InnerException: 

Line 40 is:

PrivateKeyFile privatekey = new PrivateKeyFile(myKey);

PrivateKeyFile class requires a fileName (path), not a string which has the contents of the file. So when I am trying to instantiate the privateKey object as a PrivateKeyFile, by passing in a string, it obviously cannot.

Let me know of any thoughts that come to mind, I think I'm close. I'm wondering also if there is a way to reference a String in memory as a 'file'