an authorization mechanism for SSH involving public-key cryptography.
SSH keys are an authorization mechanism for SSH involving public-key cryptography. It consists of
- A private/public key pair generated by a utility like
ssh-keygen
. - A configured (in
/etc/ssh/sshd_config
) SSH daemon that allows public key authentication. - A configured user account that has the public key copied to
~/.ssh/authorized_keys
.