Configuring OpenSSH Client Configuration Files

A user configured for SSH key-based authentication on a client system typically has the following configuration files in their $HOME/.ssh directory:

SSH2 private and public key files

The user's private and public keys, created with the ssh-keygen utility, are named as follows by default:

• id_rsa and id_rsa.pub on Oracle Linux 8 and 9.

• id_ed25519 and id_ed25519.pub on Oracle Linux 10.

The default file names in the preceding list reflect the algorithm (rsa or ed25519) used to generate the keys.

You can store several key pairs in the $HOME/.ssh directory to use across different connections.

For more information, see the ssh-keygen (1) manual page.

Caution:

The private key files can be readable and writable by the user but must not be accessible to other users.

known_hosts file

Contains the public host keys that OpenSSH has obtained from SSH servers. OpenSSH adds an entry for each new server to which a user connects.

config file

Contains client configuration settings.

Caution:

A config file can be readable and writable by the user but must not be accessible to other users.

For more information, see the ssh(1) and ssh-keygen(1) manual pages.