connect to ssh with public key

[marchello]

Hi all,
This is not debian question, but please have mercy
I'm about to connect to ssh with public key

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ssh user1@host1
Permission denied (publickey).

I already got ssh public key on local machine. I know I should copy public key into remote machine first, the problem is that password auth is forbidden. I can connect with user2@host1 and my ssh key are already copied into this user2 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file. I can do it manually, but the question is, where should I copy my local public key manually if home folder of remote user2@host1 doesn't exist?

It worked with ssh-copy-id before when password authorisation was allowed. How do I perform it now?

local machine:

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    $ cat /etc/*-release
    PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 7 (wheezy)"
    NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
    VERSION_ID="7"
    VERSION="7 (wheezy)"
    ID=raspbian
    ID_LIKE=debian
    ANSI_COLOR="1;31"
    HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/"
    SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums"
    BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs"

remote machine:

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    $ cat /etc/*-release                                   
    DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
    DISTRIB_RELEASE=14.04
    DISTRIB_CODENAME=trusty
    DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS"
    NAME="Ubuntu"
    VERSION="14.04.5 LTS, Trusty Tahr"
    ID=ubuntu
    ID_LIKE=debian
    PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS"
    VERSION_ID="14.04"
    HOME_URL="http://www.ubuntu.com/"
    SUPPORT_URL="http://help.ubuntu.com/"
    BUG_REPORT_URL="http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"

Please advise.

[fsmithred]

If you can connect as user2 (I'm assuming that user2 has a place to save files. I don't know what you mean that user2 has no home directory.)

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sftp -o IdentityFile=<user2's private key>  user2@host1
put <user1's public key>

Then

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ssh user2@host1
chown user1 <user1's public key>
su user1
cat <user1's public key> >> /home/user1/.ssh/authorized_keys
rm user1's public key
exit
exit 

If you cannot connect as user2 or any other user, then you need to either enable password logins again, or you need to put the public key on a usb thumb drive and plug it into host1 to copy the file.