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SSH Login with a Private Key

credentialstool

Summary

Authenticates over SSH with a discovered private key; the key file must have 600 permissions, and IdentitiesOnly forces use of the supplied key.

Walkthrough

Use a recovered SSH private key to log in as its owner.

Steps

  • Save the key contents to a file (e.g. id_rsa) and set strict permissions with chmod 600, or SSH refuses to use it.
  • Authenticate with ssh -i id_rsa <USER>@<IP>.
  • Add -o IdentitiesOnly=yes to force SSH to use only the supplied key when an agent offers others.

Commands

bash

nano id_rsa
chmod 600 id_rsa
ssh -i id_rsa <USER>@<IP>

bash

ssh -i root root@127.0.0.1 -o IdentitiesOnly=yes