SSH Key Pair

An SSH (Secure Shell) key pair is used for identity authentication and encrypted communication, consisting of a public key and a private key. The public key can be used to encrypt messages that only the private key can decrypt. This property is employed as a way of authenticating using the key pair. Your SSH key pair contains several public keys that can be placed on your server to access it securely.

Supported Formats

SSH keys are typically stored in the ~/.ssh/ directory.

Format	Start With	Minimum Length
RSA	ssh-rsa	2048 bits
ED25519	ssh-ed25519	256 bits
ECDSA	ecdsa-sha2-nistp	256 bits
DSA	ssh-dss	1024 bits

Note

• Provide your public key. Be careful not to use your private key.

• You're recommended to use RSA or ED25519 keys, as they have good compatibility and security. The DSA keys are not recommended, as they are vulnerable to attacks.

Example

Here we take RSA format as an example.

Public key

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQDx6VN...

Private key

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
Proc-Type: 4,ENCRYPTED
DEK-Info: AES-256-CBC,5764636E65726F726974686D616E6F6E
...
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

Limit

You can add up to 5 public SSH keys to create an SSH key pair.