Home / ubuntu / Questions / 1962
Accepted
Joshua
Asked: 2010-08-12 11:23:14 +0800 CST

How can multiple private keys be used with ssh?

  • 772

I was able to setup ssh to use private/public key authentication. Now I am able to do

ssh user@server1

And it logs on with the private key. Now I want to connect to another server and use a different key. How do set it up so

ssh user@server1

uses privatekey1

ssh user@server2

and uses privatekey2

ssh authentication

3 Answers

  1. You can set this up in your ~/.ssh/config file. You would have something like this:

    Host server1
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/key_file1

Host server2
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/key_file2

    man ssh_config is a reference

    • 62
  2. Best Answer

    There are a few options.

    1. Load both keys into your ssh agent using ssh-add. Then both keys will be available when connecting to both servers

    2. Create your $HOME/.ssh/config file and create a Host section for server1 and another for server2. In each Host section, add an IdentityFile option pointing to the appropriate private key file

    • 52

  3. Besides the (preferable) option of adding both keys in $HOME/.ssh/config (note that this requires appropriately setting attributes of $HOME/.ssh and $HOME/.ssh/config), you can use

    $ ssh -i privatekey1 user@server1

    e.g.

    I learned this by way of solving this more complex situation: Multiple ssh access types from a given user1/client to the same user2/server

    • 2