ssh-keygen
About
ssh-keygen is a Linux command for generating ssh keys.
Just typing the command without any arguments will generate a new key-pair in ~/.ssh/ (a prompt offers to let you change this), with an optional passphrase (also queried by prompt). The files will be called id_X and id_X.pub, where X is replaced by whatever key type you choose ("rsa" was the default when last tested).
It can also be used to remove conflicting entries from the .known-hosts file.
Pages
- manpage for this system
Notes
Note that there is bad syntax in the command format on the manpage. The manpage says:
ssh-keygen [-q] [-b bits] [-t dsa | ecdsa | ed25519 | rsa]
The clause which begins with [-t implies that you could type "-t dsa" or "ecdsa" or "ed25519" or "rsa", but the actual choices are "-t dsa" or "-t ecdsa" or "-t ed25519" or "-t rsa". The actual syntax should be:
ssh-keygen [-q] [-b bits] [-t [dsa | ecdsa | ed25519 | rsa]]
How To
To create a new ed25519 key:
ssh-keygen -t ed25519