

You can also specify the priviate key using -f option. Ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEA5kSivOqhs0U9ZMN20nxFe27QZ3t0lT2zbH7OSX= The following example will display the public key for the default /root/.ssh/id_rsa private key. # ssh-keygen -F dev-dbĭev-db ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEA7QEcjRkbBWpwE7zIShobue9aEGyVObVHDLhK= 7. The following output indicates that it found the entry for “dev-db” in the known-hosts file at line#10. This is helpful when you have lot of entries in the known_hosts file. You can also use ssh-keygen to search for keys in the ~/.ssh/known_hosts files.

# ssh-keygen -e -f /root/.ssh/id_rsa > /root/.ssh/id_rsa.ssh2Ĭomment: "2048-bit RSA, converted from OpenSSH by END SSH2 PUBLIC KEY - 6. You can use the following to specify the file and store the output to a different file. # ssh-keygen -eĮnter file in which the key is (/root/.ssh/id_rsa):Ĭomment: "2048-bit RSA, converted from OpenSSH by END SSH2 PUBLIC KEY. But, if you want to convert those keys to SSH comercial implementations (for example: SSH2), use the -e option as shown below.

Convert SSH keys to Different Formatīy default the keys generated by ssh-keygen will be used by the OpenSSH implementation. # ssh-keygen -C "Keys generated for node1 web server"ġ3:fe:7c:c3:9c:67:f0:16:15:7b:f5:a7:8f:64:e4:fd Keys generated for node1 web server The following example will generate the RSA keys with the comment specified. In all the above example, you can see as the comment. Specify Custom Comment to the Keysīy default, the keys generated will have as comment. Your identification has been saved in /root/my-key. The name of the files will be my-key for private key, and my-key.pub for public key. The following example will store the key files under /root directory. Apart from storing it in a different directory, you can also specify your own name for the key files.

If you don’t want to store the key files under the default location use the -f option. Your identification has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_dsa. # ssh-keygen -t dsaĮnter file in which to save the key (/root/.ssh/id_dsa): But now the file name it created was id_dsa for private key and id_dsa.pub for public key. The type of key to be generated is specified with the -t option. ssh-keygen can create RSA keys for use by SSH protocol version 1 and DSA, ECDSA or RSA keys for use by SSH protocol version 2. Please note that it still stores the keys under ~/.ssh directory. ssh-keygen (1) linux man page ssh-keygen generates, manages and converts authentication keys for ssh (1). To create DSA key, pass -t dsa as an argument. Your identification has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa. # ssh-keygenĮnter file in which to save the key (/root/.ssh/id_rsa):Įnter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): Note that the file name it created was id_rsa for private key and id_rsa.pub for public key. By default it creates RSA keypair, stores key under ~/.ssh directory. This is the default behaviour of ssh-keygen without any parameters. You can also generate Diffie-Hellman groups. It is a tool for creating new authentication key pairs for SSH.Ssh-keygen generates, manages and converts the authentication keys (private and public keys) used by SSH. When generating SSH keys under Linux, you can use the ssh-keygen command.
#Linux ssh keygen commands how to
The steps below will show you how to generate an SSH key pair and add the public key to the server. You give the public part of your key and when logging in it will be used, together with the private key and username, to verify your identity. The main concept is that instead of a password, one uses a key file which is virtually impossible to guess.
#Linux ssh keygen commands password
SSH key authentication is more secure than password authentication and arguably more convenient. SSH keys are an easy way to identify trusted computers, without involving passwords. They are widely used by network and systems administrators to control servers remotely. Password authentication is the default method most SSH clients use to authenticate with remote servers, but it suffers from potential security vulnerabilities like brute-force login attempts. An alternative to password authentication is using authentication with SSH key pair, in which you generate an SSH key and store it on your computer. Learn how to generate an SSH key pair on your machine that can then be used to authenticate your connection to a remote server.
