On Mon, Jul 06, 2026 at 15:25:55 +0500, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote:
> On 7/6/26 12:50, Chris Green wrote:
> > Alexander V. Makartsev<[email protected]> wrote:
> > > The host entry in your case should look like this:
> > >
> > > Host isbd.biz
> > > HostName isbd.biz
> > > Port 22
> > > User chris
> > > IdentityFile ~/.ssh/my-ssh-key-for-isbd-biz.key
> > >
> > But that's all default settings. Sites work without entries in
> > ~/.ssh/config if the configuration is as you've shown above.
The IdentityFile line there is not a default setting.
> SSH client uses password authentication by default, so if you want to
> authenticate with private key then you need to explicitly setup
> "IdentityFile" directive or use "-i" command line parameter to select a key
> file.
This is incorrect. ssh will use key authentication by default, but
only if your key has one of the default filenames.
Obviously ~/.ssh/my-ssh-key-for-isbd-biz.key is not a default filename
that ssh will look for.
In Trixie's ssh(1) (10.0p1):
-i identity_file
Selects a file from which the identity (private key) for public
key authentication is read. You can also specify a public key
file to use the corresponding private key that is loaded in
ssh-agent(1) when the private key file is not present locally.
The default is ~/.ssh/id_rsa, ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa,
~/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk, ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 and ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_sk.
Identity files may also be specified on a per-host basis in the
configuration file.
If your key is in one of those filenames, then you don't need to specify
it with a -i option. ssh will simply try to use it. (The list of
filenames changes from time to time, so consult your own ssh(1) to be sure
of which ones are being used.)
