`Permission Denied` to CD into a directory even though permissions are correct

Solution 1:

The directory will require the execute bit set in order for you to enter it. I don't know what you tested, but you cannot enter a directory without the execute bit, or read files in it:

$ mkdir foo
$ echo "baz" > foo/bar
$ chmod 660 foo
$ cd foo
bash: cd: foo: Permission denied
$ cat foo/bar
cat: foo/bar: Permission denied

That is, unless your process has the CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE POSIX capability set (like root has), which allows you to enter directories without the executable bit set, iirc.

Basically, you should try to keep you .ssh directory at 700, and everything in it at 600, just to be safe. The ssh man page gives per file instructions on the required ownerships and permission modes for files in ~/.ssh.

Solution 2:

A directory requires execute permission in order to cd into it. This is the behavior that is expected.

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Solution 3:

In order to ls or cd into a directory, you need execute permissions. While you don't have them, you can not really inspect the content and see the permissions of the files inside, so most probably the file permissions are wrong themselves, if you can not cat them.

Directory permission of 700 and file permissions 644 are perfectly OK setup for me.