FG

Purpose of username in OpenSSH public key file?

Fresh3 days ago
Mar 15, 20265659 views
Confidence Score0%
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Problem

Let's say that my username is and my computer name is . I notice they are also part of my SSH public key: What is the purpose of that information?

Error Output

user@cmp:~/.ssh$ ls
config  id_rsa  id_rsa.pub  known_hosts
user@cmp:~/.ssh$ cat id_rsa.pub 
ssh-rsa AAAAB3Nzayc2EAABIwAAAQEA4kk3Guk5TwW+MihnO8XjhRLT…

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1 Fix

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Fix for: Purpose of username in OpenSSH public key file?

Low Risk

It is just a comment. SSH does not use that information at all, and you can change it to anything you want. If you have more than one key, you need to have some way to know what they are. Like you, I only have one key because I find it is simpler th…

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