Home / ubuntu / Questions / 801997
Accepted
Enrique Moreno Tent
Asked: 2016-07-24 03:09:36 +0800 CST

Purpose of email at the end of SSH public key

  • 772

I was adding one of my public keys to the authorized_keys on one of my servers when I realized that at the end of my public SSH key there is my email:

$ cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub
ssh-rsa AAAA[...lots of characters...]bpL [email protected]
  • Why is my email address at the end of the key?
  • Does it have any specific purpose?

  • Can I write anything I want in my authorized_keys file? Like for instance:

    ssh-rsa AAAA[...lots of characters...]bpL John Doe (Home PC)
ssh

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    1. Most likely to identify who created the key.

    2. It is just a comment. But as said at 1: probably so you know you created it. Useful when more than 1 administrator is administrating the system.

    3. Yes, you can add anything in place of your e-mail. And since it is the last part of it you do not have to use anything special for spaces etc.

      Extra: ssh-keygen -c to change it for RSA1 keys (only works for RSA1).

    • 18