ssh-keyscan.openssh - gather ssh public keys
ssh-keyscan [-46Hv] [-f file] [-p port] [-T timeout] [-t type] [host | addrlist namelist] ...
SSH-KEYSCAN(1) General Commands Manual SSH-KEYSCAN(1)
NAME
ssh-keyscan - gather ssh public keys
SYNOPSIS
ssh-keyscan [-46Hv] [-f file] [-p port] [-T timeout] [-t type] [host |
addrlist namelist] ...
DESCRIPTION
ssh-keyscan is a utility for gathering the public ssh host keys of a
number of hosts. It was designed to aid in building and verifying
ssh_known_hosts files. ssh-keyscan provides a minimal interface suit-
able for use by shell and perl scripts.
ssh-keyscan uses non-blocking socket I/O to contact as many hosts as
possible in parallel, so it is very efficient. The keys from a domain
of 1,000 hosts can be collected in tens of seconds, even when some of
those hosts are down or do not run ssh. For scanning, one does not
need login access to the machines that are being scanned, nor does the
scanning process involve any encryption.
The options are as follows:
-4 Forces ssh-keyscan to use IPv4 addresses only.
-6 Forces ssh-keyscan to use IPv6 addresses only.
-f file
Read hosts or addrlist namelist pairs from this file, one per
line. If - is supplied instead of a filename, ssh-keyscan will
read hosts or addrlist namelist pairs from the standard input.
-H Hash all hostnames and addresses in the output. Hashed names
may be used normally by ssh and sshd, but they do not reveal
identifying information should the file's contents be disclosed.
-p port
Port to connect to on the remote host.
-T timeout
Set the timeout for connection attempts. If timeout seconds
have elapsed since a connection was initiated to a host or since
the last time anything was read from that host, then the connec-
tion is closed and the host in question considered unavailable.
Default is 5 seconds.
-t type
Specifies the type of the key to fetch from the scanned hosts.
The possible values are ``rsa1'' for protocol version 1 and
``dsa'', or ``rsa'' for protocol version 2. Multiple values may
be specified by separating them with commas. The default is to
fetch ``rsa'' keys.
-v Verbose mode. Causes ssh-keyscan to print debugging messages
about its progress.
SECURITY
If an ssh_known_hosts file is constructed using ssh-keyscan without
verifying the keys, users will be vulnerable to maninthemiddle attacks.
On the other hand, if the security model allows such a risk, ssh-
keyscan can help in the detection of tampered keyfiles or man in the
middle attacks which have begun after the ssh_known_hosts file was cre-
ated.
FILES
Input format:
1.2.3.4,1.2.4.4 name.my.domain,name,n.my.domain,n,1.2.3.4,1.2.4.4
Output format for rsa1 keys:
host-or-namelist bits exponent modulus
Output format for rsa and dsa keys:
host-or-namelist keytype base64-encoded-key
Where keytype is either ``ssh-dss'' or ``ssh-rsa''.
/etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts
EXAMPLES
Print the rsa host key for machine hostname:
$ ssh-keyscan hostname
Find all hosts from the file ssh_hosts which have new or different keys
from those in the sorted file ssh_known_hosts:
$ ssh-keyscan -t rsa,dsa -f ssh_hosts | \
sort -u - ssh_known_hosts | diff ssh_known_hosts -
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+---------------+------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+------------------+
|Availability | network/openssh |
+---------------+------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
+---------------+------------------+
SEE ALSO
ssh(1), sshd(8)
AUTHORS
-nosplit
David Mazieres <Mt dm@lcs.mit.edu> wrote the initial version, and
Wayne Davison <Mt wayned@users.sourceforge.net> added support for pro-
tocol version 2.
BUGS
It generates "Connection closed by remote host" messages on the con-
soles of all the machines it scans if the server is older than version
2.9. This is because it opens a connection to the ssh port, reads the
public key, and drops the connection as soon as it gets the key.
NOTES
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original community
source was downloaded from http://mirror.team-cymru.org/pub/Open-
BSD/OpenSSH/portable/openssh-6.5p1.tar.gz
Further information about this software can be found on the open source
community website at http://www.openssh.org/.
December 7 2013 SSH-KEYSCAN(1)