OpenSSH Change a Passphrase With ssh-keygen command

Q. How do I change OpenSSH passphrase for one of my private keys under Linux?

A. Use ssh-keygen command to generates, change manages and converts authentication keys for ssh. Generally, you should the see following files at $HOME/.ssh (~/.ssh directory i.e. /home/you/.ssh/)

=> id_dsa : DSA authentication identity of the user

=> id_dsa.pub : DSA public key for authentication

=> id_rsa : RSA authentication identity of the user

=> id_rsa.pub : RSA public key for authentication

Changing a Passphrase with ssh-keygen

The -p option 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. Use -f {filename} option to specifies the filename of the key file. For example, change directory to .ssh:
$ cd .ssh
To change RSA passphrase, enter:
$ ssh-keygen -f id_rsa -p
To change DSA passphrase, enter:
$ ssh-keygen -f id_dsa -p

Want to read Linux tips and tricks, but don't have time to check our blog everyday? Subscribe to our daily email newsletter to make sure you don't miss a single tip/tricks. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here!

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Stu 02.04.08 at 8:07 pm

If something relies on the private key will it still work the same way? I mean a SSL certificate for example…

2 Matt Simmons 11.14.08 at 4:33 pm

Thanks for writing this! I linked to this page in my explanation of Passphrase enabled key authentication

Leave a Comment

You can use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Previous post: Sudo is Not Prompting For a Password When Re-executed Second Time

Next post: List the contents of a tar.bz2