SSH-KEYSIGN(8)              System Manager's Manual             SSH-KEYSIGN(8)

NAME
     ssh-keysign M-bM-^@M-^S OpenSSH helper for host-based authentication

SYNOPSIS
     ssh-keysign

DESCRIPTION
     ssh-keysign is used by ssh(1) to access the local host keys and generate
     the digital signature required during host-based authentication.

     ssh-keysign is disabled by default and can only be enabled in the global
     client configuration file /etc/ssh/ssh_config by setting EnableSSHKeysign
     to M-bM-^@M-^\yesM-bM-^@M-^].

     ssh-keysign is not intended to be invoked by the user, but from ssh(1).
     See ssh(1) and sshd(8) for more information about host-based
     authentication.

FILES
     /etc/ssh/ssh_config
             Controls whether ssh-keysign is enabled.

     /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
     /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key
     /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
             These files contain the private parts of the host keys used to
             generate the digital signature.  They should be owned by root,
             readable only by root, and not accessible to others.  Since they
             are readable only by root, ssh-keysign must be set-uid root if
             host-based authentication is used.

     /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key-cert.pub
     /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key-cert.pub
     /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key-cert.pub
             If these files exist, they are assumed to contain public
             certificate information corresponding with the private keys
             above.

SEE ALSO
     ssh(1), ssh-keygen(1), ssh_config(5), sshd(8)

HISTORY
     ssh-keysign first appeared in OpenBSD 3.2.

AUTHORS
     Markus Friedl <markus@openbsd.org>

OpenBSD 7.6                      June 17, 2024                     OpenBSD 7.6
