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SSH-KEYSIGN(8) System Manager's Manual SSH-KEYSIGN(8)

NAME

ssh-keysignssh helper program for host-based authentication

SYNOPSIS

ssh-keysign

DESCRIPTION

ssh-keysign is used by ssh(1) to access the local host keys and generate the digital signature required during host-based authentication.

ssh-keysign is disabled by default and can only be enabled in the global client configuration file /etc/ssh/ssh_config by setting EnableSSHKeysign to “yes”.

ssh-keysign is not intended to be invoked by the user, but from ssh(1). See ssh(1) and sshd(8) for more information about host-based authentication.

FILES

/etc/ssh/ssh_config
Controls whether ssh-keysign is enabled.

/etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
 
/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
 
/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key
 
/etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
These files contain the private parts of the host keys used to generate the digital signature. They should be owned by root, readable only by root, and not accessible to others. Since they are readable only by root, ssh-keysign must be set-uid root if host-based authentication is used.

/etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key-cert.pub
 
/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key-cert.pub
 
/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key-cert.pub
 
/etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key-cert.pub
If these files exist they are assumed to contain public certificate information corresponding with the private keys above.

ENVIRONMENT

SSH_USE_STRONG_RNG
The reseeding of the OpenSSL random generator is usually done from getrandom(1) without any specific flags. If the SSH_USE_STRONG_RNG environment variable is set to value other than 0 the OpenSSL random generator is reseeded from getrandom(1) with GRND_RANDOM flag specified. The number of bytes read is defined by the SSH_USE_STRONG_RNG value. Minimum is 14 bytes. This setting is not recommended on the computers without the hardware random generator because insufficient entropy causes the connection to be blocked until enough entropy is available.

SEE ALSO

ssh(1), ssh-keygen(1), ssh_config(5), sshd(8)

HISTORY

ssh-keysign first appeared in OpenBSD 3.2.

AUTHORS

Markus Friedl <markus@openbsd.org>

February 17, 2016 Linux 5.14.0-427.18.1.el9_4.x86_64