Skip to content

Create SSH Key

Create key pair using different algorithms

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
$ ssh-keygen -t dsa
$ ssh-keygen -t ecdsa -b 521
$ ssh-keygen -t ed25519

Specify a file name while creating the key pair

$ ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/rdu_github -t rsa -b 4096

Typically you want the permissions to be:

  • .ssh directory: 700 (drwx------)
  • public key (.pub file): 644 (-rw-r--r--)
  • private key (id_rsa): 600 (-rw-------)

To access Github repositories with a SSH key, you may add the following config to ~/.ssh/config

Host github.com
  HostName github.com
  PreferredAuthentications publickey
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/<your-ssh-key-file-name>
  IdentitiesOnly=yes

Reference

  • [1] https://www.ssh.com/ssh/keygen/
  • [2] https://superuser.com/questions/215504/permissions-on-private-key-in-ssh-folder