NAME
   ssh-keygen - authentication key generation, management and conversion

SYNOPSIS
   ssh-keygen [-q] [-b bits] -t type [-N new_passphrase] [-C comment]
  [-f output_keyfile]
   ssh-keygen -p [-P old_passphrase] [-N new_passphrase] [-f keyfile]
   ssh-keygen -i [-f input_keyfile]
   ssh-keygen -e [-f input_keyfile]
   ssh-keygen -y [-f input_keyfile]
   ssh-keygen -c [-P passphrase] [-C comment] [-f keyfile]
   ssh-keygen -l [-f input_keyfile]
   ssh-keygen -B [-f input_keyfile]
   ssh-keygen -D reader
   ssh-keygen -U reader [-f input_keyfile]

DESCRIPTION
   ssh-keygen generates, manages and converts authentication keys for
   ssh(1). ssh-keygen can create RSA keys for use by SSH protocol version 1
   and RSA or DSA keys for use by SSH protocol version 2. The type of key to
   be generated is specified with the -t option.

   Normally each user wishing to use SSH with RSA or DSA authentication runs
   this once to create the authentication key in $HOME/.ssh/identity,
   $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa or $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa. Additionally, the system admin-
   istrator may use this to generate host keys, as seen in /etc/rc.

   Normally this program generates the key and asks for a file in which to
   store the private key. The public key is stored in a file with the same
   name but ``.pub'' appended. The program also asks for a passphrase. The
   passphrase may be empty to indicate no passphrase (host keys must have an
   empty passphrase), or it may be a string of arbitrary length. A
   passphrase is similar to a password, except it can be a phrase with a
   series of words, punctuation, numbers, whitespace, or any string of char-
   acters you want. Good passphrases are 10-30 characters long, are not
   simple sentences or otherwise easily guessable (English prose has only
   1-2 bits of entropy per character, and provides very bad passphrases),
   and contain a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and non-
   alphanumeric characters. The passphrase can be changed later by using
   the -p option.

   There is no way to recover a lost passphrase. If the passphrase is lost
   or forgotten, a new key must be generated and copied to the corresponding
   public key to other machines.

   For RSA1 keys, there is also a comment field in the key file that is only
   for convenience to the user to help identify the key. The comment can
   tell what the key is for, or whatever is useful. The comment is initial-
   ized to ``user@host'' when the key is created, but can be changed using
   the -c option.

   After a key is generated, instructions below detail where the keys should
   be placed to be activated.

   The options are as follows:

   -b bits
    Specifies the number of bits in the key to create.  Minimum is
    512 bits. Generally 1024 bits is considered sufficient, and key
    sizes above that no longer improve security but make things
    slower. The default is 1024 bits.

   -c    Requests changing the comment in the private and public key
    files. This operation is only supported for RSA1 keys. The pro-
    gram will prompt for the file containing the private keys, for
    the passphrase if the key has one, and for the new comment.

   -e    This option will read a private or public OpenSSH key file and
    print the key in a 'SECSH Public Key File Format' to stdout.
    This option allows exporting keys for use by several commercial
    SSH implementations.

   -f filename
    Specifies the filename of the key file.

   -i    This option will read an unencrypted private (or public) key file
    in SSH2-compatible format and print an OpenSSH compatible private
    (or public) key to stdout.  ssh-keygen also reads the 'SECSH
    Public Key File Format'. This option allows importing keys from
    several commercial SSH implementations.

   -l    Show fingerprint of specified public key file. Private RSA1 keys
    are also supported. For RSA and DSA keys ssh-keygen tries to
    find the matching public key file and prints its fingerprint.

   -p    Requests changing the passphrase of a private key file instead of
    creating a new private key. The program will prompt for the file
    containing the private key, for the old passphrase, and twice for
    the new passphrase.

   -q    Silence ssh-keygen. Used by /etc/rc when creating a new key.

   -y    This option will read a private OpenSSH format file and print an
    OpenSSH public key to stdout.

   -t type
    Specifies the type of the key to create. The possible values are
    ``rsa1'' for protocol version 1 and ``rsa'' or ``dsa'' for proto-
    col version 2.

   -B    Show the bubblebabble digest of specified private or public key
    file.

   -C comment
    Provides the new comment.

   -D reader
    Download the RSA public key stored in the smartcard in reader.

   -N new_passphrase
    Provides the new passphrase.

   -P passphrase
    Provides the (old) passphrase.

   -U reader
    Upload an existing RSA private key into the smartcard in reader.

FILES
   $HOME/.ssh/identity
    Contains the protocol version 1 RSA authentication identity of
    the user. This file should not be readable by anyone but the
    user. It is possible to specify a passphrase when generating the
    key; that passphrase will be used to encrypt the private part of
    this file using 3DES. This file is not automatically accessed by
    ssh-keygen but it is offered as the default file for the private
    key. ssh(1) will read this file when a login attempt is made.

   $HOME/.ssh/identity.pub
    Contains the protocol version 1 RSA public key for authentica-
    tion. The contents of this file should be added to
    $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys on all machines where the user wishes
    to log in using RSA authentication. There is no need to keep the
    contents of this file secret.

   $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa
    Contains the protocol version 2 DSA authentication identity of
    the user. This file should not be readable by anyone but the
    user. It is possible to specify a passphrase when generating the
    key; that passphrase will be used to encrypt the private part of
    this file using 3DES. This file is not automatically accessed by
    ssh-keygen but it is offered as the default file for the private
    key. ssh(1) will read this file when a login attempt is made.

   $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa.pub
    Contains the protocol version 2 DSA public key for authentica-
    tion. The contents of this file should be added to
    $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys on all machines where the user wishes
    to log in using public key authentication.  There is no need to
    keep the contents of this file secret.

   $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa
    Contains the protocol version 2 RSA authentication identity of
    the user. This file should not be readable by anyone but the
    user. It is possible to specify a passphrase when generating the
    key; that passphrase will be used to encrypt the private part of
    this file using 3DES. This file is not automatically accessed by
    ssh-keygen but it is offered as the default file for the private
    key. ssh(1) will read this file when a login attempt is made.

   $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
    Contains the protocol version 2 RSA public key for authentica-
    tion. The contents of this file should be added to
    $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys on all machines where the user wishes
    to log in using public key authentication.  There is no need to
    keep the contents of this file secret.

AUTHORS
   OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by
   Tatu Ylonen. Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo
   de Raadt and Dug Song removed many bugs, re-added newer features and cre-
   ated OpenSSH. Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol
   versions 1.5 and 2.0.

SEE ALSO
  ssh(1),ssh-add(1),ssh-agent(1), sshd(8)

   J. Galbraith and R. Thayer, SECSH Public Key File Format, draft-ietf-
   secsh-publickeyfile-01.txt, March 2001, work in progress material.