2 .\" Author: Tatu Ylonen <ylo@cs.hut.fi>
3 .\" Copyright (c) 1995 Tatu Ylonen <ylo@cs.hut.fi>, Espoo, Finland
4 .\" All rights reserved
6 .\" As far as I am concerned, the code I have written for this software
7 .\" can be used freely for any purpose. Any derived versions of this
8 .\" software must be clearly marked as such, and if the derived work is
9 .\" incompatible with the protocol description in the RFC file, it must be
10 .\" called by a name other than "ssh" or "Secure Shell".
12 .\" Copyright (c) 1999,2000 Markus Friedl. All rights reserved.
13 .\" Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron Campbell. All rights reserved.
14 .\" Copyright (c) 1999 Theo de Raadt. All rights reserved.
16 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
17 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
19 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
20 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
21 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
22 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
23 .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
25 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR
26 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
27 .\" OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.
28 .\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
29 .\" INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
30 .\" NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
31 .\" DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
32 .\" THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
33 .\" (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF
34 .\" THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
36 .\" $OpenBSD: ssh_config.5,v 1.236 2016/07/22 07:00:46 djm Exp $
38 .Dd $Mdocdate: July 22 2016 $
43 .Nd OpenSSH SSH client configuration files
46 .Nm /etc/ssh/ssh_config
49 obtains configuration data from the following sources in
52 .Bl -enum -offset indent -compact
56 user's configuration file
59 system-wide configuration file
60 .Pq Pa /etc/ssh/ssh_config
63 For each parameter, the first obtained value
65 The configuration files contain sections separated by
67 specifications, and that section is only applied for hosts that
68 match one of the patterns given in the specification.
69 The matched host name is usually the one given on the command line
71 .Cm CanonicalizeHostname
72 option for exceptions.)
74 Since the first obtained value for each parameter is used, more
75 host-specific declarations should be given near the beginning of the
76 file, and general defaults at the end.
78 The configuration file has the following format:
80 Empty lines and lines starting with
83 Otherwise a line is of the format
84 .Dq keyword arguments .
85 Configuration options may be separated by whitespace or
86 optional whitespace and exactly one
88 the latter format is useful to avoid the need to quote whitespace
89 when specifying configuration options using the
96 Arguments may optionally be enclosed in double quotes
98 in order to represent arguments containing spaces.
101 keywords and their meanings are as follows (note that
102 keywords are case-insensitive and arguments are case-sensitive):
105 Restricts the following declarations (up to the next
109 keyword) to be only for those hosts that match one of the patterns
110 given after the keyword.
111 If more than one pattern is provided, they should be separated by whitespace.
114 as a pattern can be used to provide global
115 defaults for all hosts.
116 The host is usually the
118 argument given on the command line
120 .Cm CanonicalizeHostname
121 option for exceptions.)
123 A pattern entry may be negated by prefixing it with an exclamation mark
125 If a negated entry is matched, then the
127 entry is ignored, regardless of whether any other patterns on the line
129 Negated matches are therefore useful to provide exceptions for wildcard
134 for more information on patterns.
136 Restricts the following declarations (up to the next
140 keyword) to be used only when the conditions following the
142 keyword are satisfied.
143 Match conditions are specified using one or more criteria
146 which always matches.
147 The available criteria keywords are:
157 criteria must appear alone or immediately after
159 Other criteria may be combined arbitrarily.
165 Criteria may be negated by prepending an exclamation mark
170 keyword matches only when the configuration file is being re-parsed
171 after hostname canonicalization (see the
172 .Cm CanonicalizeHostname
174 This may be useful to specify conditions that work with canonical host
178 keyword executes the specified command under the user's shell.
179 If the command returns a zero exit status then the condition is considered true.
180 Commands containing whitespace characters must be quoted.
181 The following character sequences in the command will be expanded prior to
184 will be substituted by the first component of the local host name,
186 will be substituted by the local host name (including any domain name),
188 will be substituted by the target host name,
190 will be substituted by the original target host name
191 specified on the command-line,
193 the destination port,
195 by the remote login username, and
197 by the username of the user running
200 The other keywords' criteria must be single entries or comma-separated
201 lists and may use the wildcard and negation operators described in the
206 keyword are matched against the target hostname, after any substitution
210 .Cm CanonicalizeHostname
214 keyword matches against the hostname as it was specified on the command-line.
217 keyword matches against the target username on the remote host.
220 keyword matches against the name of the local user running
222 (this keyword may be useful in system-wide
225 .It Cm AddKeysToAgent
226 Specifies whether keys should be automatically added to a running
228 If this option is set to
230 and a key is loaded from a file, the key and its passphrase are added to
231 the agent with the default lifetime, as if by
233 If this option is set to
236 will require confirmation using the
238 program before adding a key (see
241 If this option is set to
243 each use of the key must be confirmed, as if the
245 option was specified to
247 If this option is set to
249 no keys are added to the agent.
259 Specifies which address family to use when connecting.
271 passphrase/password querying will be disabled.
272 This option is useful in scripts and other batch jobs where no user
273 is present to supply the password.
281 Use the specified address on the local machine as the source address of
283 Only useful on systems with more than one address.
284 Note that this option does not work if
285 .Cm UsePrivilegedPort
288 .It Cm CanonicalDomains
290 .Cm CanonicalizeHostname
291 is enabled, this option specifies the list of domain suffixes in which to
292 search for the specified destination host.
293 .It Cm CanonicalizeFallbackLocal
294 Specifies whether to fail with an error when hostname canonicalization fails.
297 will attempt to look up the unqualified hostname using the system resolver's
304 .Cm CanonicalizeHostname
305 is enabled and the target hostname cannot be found in any of the domains
307 .Cm CanonicalDomains .
308 .It Cm CanonicalizeHostname
309 Controls whether explicit hostname canonicalization is performed.
312 is not to perform any name rewriting and let the system resolver handle all
316 then, for connections that do not use a
319 will attempt to canonicalize the hostname specified on the command line
323 .Cm CanonicalizePermittedCNAMEs
326 .Cm CanonicalizeHostname
329 then canonicalization is applied to proxied connections too.
331 If this option is enabled, then the configuration files are processed
332 again using the new target name to pick up any new configuration in matching
337 .It Cm CanonicalizeMaxDots
338 Specifies the maximum number of dot characters in a hostname before
339 canonicalization is disabled.
342 allows a single dot (i.e. hostname.subdomain).
343 .It Cm CanonicalizePermittedCNAMEs
344 Specifies rules to determine whether CNAMEs should be followed when
345 canonicalizing hostnames.
346 The rules consist of one or more arguments of
347 .Ar source_domain_list : Ns Ar target_domain_list ,
349 .Ar source_domain_list
350 is a pattern-list of domains that may follow CNAMEs in canonicalization,
352 .Ar target_domain_list
353 is a pattern-list of domains that they may resolve to.
356 .Dq *.a.example.com:*.b.example.com,*.c.example.com
357 will allow hostnames matching
359 to be canonicalized to names in the
364 .It Cm CertificateFile
365 Specifies a file from which the user's certificate is read.
366 A corresponding private key must be provided separately in order
367 to use this certificate either
379 The file name may use the tilde
380 syntax to refer to a user's home directory or one of the following
383 (local user's home directory),
389 (remote host name) or
393 It is possible to have multiple certificate files specified in
394 configuration files; these certificates will be tried in sequence.
397 directives will add to the list of certificates used for
399 .It Cm ChallengeResponseAuthentication
400 Specifies whether to use challenge-response authentication.
401 The argument to this keyword must be
408 If this flag is set to
411 will additionally check the host IP address in the
414 This allows ssh to detect if a host key changed due to DNS spoofing
415 and will add addresses of destination hosts to
416 .Pa ~/.ssh/known_hosts
417 in the process, regardless of the setting of
418 .Cm StrictHostKeyChecking .
419 If the option is set to
421 the check will not be executed.
425 Specifies the cipher to use for encrypting the session
426 in protocol version 1.
434 is only supported in the
436 client for interoperability with legacy protocol 1 implementations
437 that do not support the
440 Its use is strongly discouraged due to cryptographic weaknesses.
444 Specifies the ciphers allowed for protocol version 2
445 in order of preference.
446 Multiple ciphers must be comma-separated.
447 If the specified value begins with a
449 character, then the specified ciphers will be appended to the default set
450 instead of replacing them.
452 The supported ciphers are:
454 .Bl -item -compact -offset indent
470 aes128-gcm@openssh.com
472 aes256-gcm@openssh.com
484 chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com
488 .Bd -literal -offset indent
489 chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com,
490 aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,
491 aes128-gcm@openssh.com,aes256-gcm@openssh.com,
492 aes128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,3des-cbc
495 The list of available ciphers may also be obtained using the
501 .It Cm ClearAllForwardings
502 Specifies that all local, remote, and dynamic port forwardings
503 specified in the configuration files or on the command line be
505 This option is primarily useful when used from the
507 command line to clear port forwardings set in
508 configuration files, and is automatically set by
519 Specifies whether to use compression.
526 .It Cm CompressionLevel
527 Specifies the compression level to use if compression is enabled.
528 The argument must be an integer from 1 (fast) to 9 (slow, best).
529 The default level is 6, which is good for most applications.
530 The meaning of the values is the same as in
532 Note that this option applies to protocol version 1 only.
533 .It Cm ConnectionAttempts
534 Specifies the number of tries (one per second) to make before exiting.
535 The argument must be an integer.
536 This may be useful in scripts if the connection sometimes fails.
538 .It Cm ConnectTimeout
539 Specifies the timeout (in seconds) used when connecting to the
540 SSH server, instead of using the default system TCP timeout.
541 This value is used only when the target is down or really unreachable,
542 not when it refuses the connection.
544 Enables the sharing of multiple sessions over a single network connection.
548 will listen for connections on a control socket specified using the
551 Additional sessions can connect to this socket using the same
558 These sessions will try to reuse the master instance's network connection
559 rather than initiating new ones, but will fall back to connecting normally
560 if the control socket does not exist, or is not listening.
565 to listen for control connections, but require confirmation using
570 ssh will continue without connecting to a master instance.
574 forwarding is supported over these multiplexed connections, however the
575 display and agent forwarded will be the one belonging to the master
576 connection i.e. it is not possible to forward multiple displays or agents.
578 Two additional options allow for opportunistic multiplexing: try to use a
579 master connection but fall back to creating a new one if one does not already
585 The latter requires confirmation like the
589 Specify the path to the control socket used for connection sharing as described
592 section above or the string
594 to disable connection sharing.
597 will be substituted by the first component of the local host name,
599 will be substituted by the local host name (including any domain name),
601 will be substituted by the target host name,
603 will be substituted by the original target host name
604 specified on the command line,
606 the destination port,
608 by the remote login username,
612 by the numeric user ID (uid) of the user running
616 by a hash of the concatenation: %l%h%p%r.
617 It is recommended that any
619 used for opportunistic connection sharing include
620 at least %h, %p, and %r (or alternatively %C) and be placed in a directory
621 that is not writable by other users.
622 This ensures that shared connections are uniquely identified.
623 .It Cm ControlPersist
624 When used in conjunction with
626 specifies that the master connection should remain open
627 in the background (waiting for future client connections)
628 after the initial client connection has been closed.
631 then the master connection will not be placed into the background,
632 and will close as soon as the initial client connection is closed.
637 then the master connection will remain in the background indefinitely
638 (until killed or closed via a mechanism such as the
642 If set to a time in seconds, or a time in any of the formats documented in
644 then the backgrounded master connection will automatically terminate
645 after it has remained idle (with no client connections) for the
647 .It Cm DynamicForward
648 Specifies that a TCP port on the local machine be forwarded
649 over the secure channel, and the application
650 protocol is then used to determine where to connect to from the
655 .Oo Ar bind_address : Oc Ar port .
657 IPv6 addresses can be specified by enclosing addresses in square brackets.
658 By default, the local port is bound in accordance with the
663 may be used to bind the connection to a specific address.
668 indicates that the listening port be bound for local use only, while an
671 indicates that the port should be available from all interfaces.
673 Currently the SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 protocols are supported, and
675 will act as a SOCKS server.
676 Multiple forwardings may be specified, and
677 additional forwardings can be given on the command line.
678 Only the superuser can forward privileged ports.
679 .It Cm EnableSSHKeysign
680 Setting this option to
682 in the global client configuration file
683 .Pa /etc/ssh/ssh_config
684 enables the use of the helper program
687 .Cm HostbasedAuthentication .
694 This option should be placed in the non-hostspecific section.
697 for more information.
699 Sets the escape character (default:
701 The escape character can also
702 be set on the command line.
703 The argument should be a single character,
705 followed by a letter, or
707 to disable the escape
708 character entirely (making the connection transparent for binary
710 .It Cm ExitOnForwardFailure
713 should terminate the connection if it cannot set up all requested
714 dynamic, tunnel, local, and remote port forwardings, (e.g.\&
715 if either end is unable to bind and listen on a specified port).
717 .Cm ExitOnForwardFailure
718 does not apply to connections made over port forwardings and will not,
721 to exit if TCP connections to the ultimate forwarding destination fail.
728 .It Cm FingerprintHash
729 Specifies the hash algorithm used when displaying key fingerprints.
737 Specifies whether the connection to the authentication agent (if any)
738 will be forwarded to the remote machine.
746 Agent forwarding should be enabled with caution.
747 Users with the ability to bypass file permissions on the remote host
748 (for the agent's Unix-domain socket)
749 can access the local agent through the forwarded connection.
750 An attacker cannot obtain key material from the agent,
751 however they can perform operations on the keys that enable them to
752 authenticate using the identities loaded into the agent.
754 Specifies whether X11 connections will be automatically redirected
755 over the secure channel and
765 X11 forwarding should be enabled with caution.
766 Users with the ability to bypass file permissions on the remote host
767 (for the user's X11 authorization database)
768 can access the local X11 display through the forwarded connection.
769 An attacker may then be able to perform activities such as keystroke monitoring
771 .Cm ForwardX11Trusted
772 option is also enabled.
773 .It Cm ForwardX11Timeout
774 Specify a timeout for untrusted X11 forwarding
775 using the format described in the
776 TIME FORMATS section of
778 X11 connections received by
780 after this time will be refused.
781 The default is to disable untrusted X11 forwarding after twenty minutes has
783 .It Cm ForwardX11Trusted
784 If this option is set to
786 remote X11 clients will have full access to the original X11 display.
788 If this option is set to
790 remote X11 clients will be considered untrusted and prevented
791 from stealing or tampering with data belonging to trusted X11
795 token used for the session will be set to expire after 20 minutes.
796 Remote clients will be refused access after this time.
801 See the X11 SECURITY extension specification for full details on
802 the restrictions imposed on untrusted clients.
804 Specifies whether remote hosts are allowed to connect to local
808 binds local port forwardings to the loopback address.
809 This prevents other remote hosts from connecting to forwarded ports.
811 can be used to specify that ssh
812 should bind local port forwardings to the wildcard address,
813 thus allowing remote hosts to connect to forwarded ports.
820 .It Cm GlobalKnownHostsFile
821 Specifies one or more files to use for the global
822 host key database, separated by whitespace.
824 .Pa /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts ,
825 .Pa /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts2 .
826 .It Cm GSSAPIAuthentication
827 Specifies whether user authentication based on GSSAPI is allowed.
830 .It Cm GSSAPIDelegateCredentials
831 Forward (delegate) credentials to the server.
834 .It Cm HashKnownHosts
837 should hash host names and addresses when they are added to
838 .Pa ~/.ssh/known_hosts .
839 These hashed names may be used normally by
843 but they do not reveal identifying information should the file's contents
847 Note that existing names and addresses in known hosts files
848 will not be converted automatically,
849 but may be manually hashed using
851 .It Cm HostbasedAuthentication
852 Specifies whether to try rhosts based authentication with public key
860 .It Cm HostbasedKeyTypes
861 Specifies the key types that will be used for hostbased authentication
862 as a comma-separated pattern list.
863 Alternately if the specified value begins with a
865 character, then the specified key types will be appended to the default set
866 instead of replacing them.
867 The default for this option is:
868 .Bd -literal -offset 3n
869 ecdsa-sha2-nistp256-cert-v01@openssh.com,
870 ecdsa-sha2-nistp384-cert-v01@openssh.com,
871 ecdsa-sha2-nistp521-cert-v01@openssh.com,
872 ssh-ed25519-cert-v01@openssh.com,
873 ssh-rsa-cert-v01@openssh.com,
874 ssh-dss-cert-v01@openssh.com,
875 ecdsa-sha2-nistp256,ecdsa-sha2-nistp384,
876 ecdsa-sha2-nistp521,ssh-ed25519,
884 may be used to list supported key types.
885 .It Cm HostKeyAlgorithms
886 Specifies the host key algorithms
887 that the client wants to use in order of preference.
888 Alternately if the specified value begins with a
890 character, then the specified key types will be appended to the default set
891 instead of replacing them.
892 The default for this option is:
893 .Bd -literal -offset 3n
894 ecdsa-sha2-nistp256-cert-v01@openssh.com,
895 ecdsa-sha2-nistp384-cert-v01@openssh.com,
896 ecdsa-sha2-nistp521-cert-v01@openssh.com,
897 ssh-ed25519-cert-v01@openssh.com,
898 ssh-rsa-cert-v01@openssh.com,
899 ssh-dss-cert-v01@openssh.com,
900 ecdsa-sha2-nistp256,ecdsa-sha2-nistp384,
901 ecdsa-sha2-nistp521,ssh-ed25519,
905 If hostkeys are known for the destination host then this default is modified
906 to prefer their algorithms.
908 The list of available key types may also be obtained using the
915 Specifies an alias that should be used instead of the
916 real host name when looking up or saving the host key
917 in the host key database files.
918 This option is useful for tunneling SSH connections
919 or for multiple servers running on a single host.
921 Specifies the real host name to log into.
922 This can be used to specify nicknames or abbreviations for hosts.
923 If the hostname contains the character sequence
925 then this will be replaced with the host name specified on the command line
926 (this is useful for manipulating unqualified names).
927 The character sequence
929 will be replaced by a single
931 character, which may be used when specifying IPv6 link-local addresses.
933 The default is the name given on the command line.
934 Numeric IP addresses are also permitted (both on the command line and in
937 .It Cm IdentitiesOnly
940 should only use the authentication identity and certificate files explicitly
951 offers more identities.
952 The argument to this keyword must be
956 This option is intended for situations where ssh-agent
957 offers many different identities.
963 socket used to communicate with the authentication agent.
965 This option overrides the
967 environment variable and can be used to select a specific agent.
968 Setting the socket name to
970 disables the use of an authentication agent.
973 is specified, the location of the socket will be read from the
975 environment variable.
977 The socket name may use the tilde
978 syntax to refer to a user's home directory or one of the following
981 (local user's home directory),
987 (remote host name) or
991 Specifies a file from which the user's DSA, ECDSA, Ed25519 or RSA authentication
995 for protocol version 1, and
997 .Pa ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa ,
998 .Pa ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
1001 for protocol version 2.
1002 Additionally, any identities represented by the authentication agent
1003 will be used for authentication unless
1006 If no certificates have been explicitly specified by
1007 .Cm CertificateFile ,
1009 will try to load certificate information from the filename obtained by
1012 to the path of a specified
1015 The file name may use the tilde
1016 syntax to refer to a user's home directory or one of the following
1019 (local user's home directory),
1025 (remote host name) or
1029 It is possible to have
1030 multiple identity files specified in configuration files; all these
1031 identities will be tried in sequence.
1034 directives will add to the list of identities tried (this behaviour
1035 differs from that of other configuration directives).
1038 may be used in conjunction with
1040 to select which identities in an agent are offered during authentication.
1042 may also be used in conjunction with
1044 in order to provide any certificate also needed for authentication with
1046 .It Cm IgnoreUnknown
1047 Specifies a pattern-list of unknown options to be ignored if they are
1048 encountered in configuration parsing.
1049 This may be used to suppress errors if
1051 contains options that are unrecognised by
1053 It is recommended that
1055 be listed early in the configuration file as it will not be applied
1056 to unknown options that appear before it.
1058 Include the specified configuration file(s).
1059 Multiple pathnames may be specified and each pathname may contain
1061 wildcards and, for user configurations, shell-like
1063 references to user home directories.
1064 Files without absolute paths are assumed to be in
1066 if included in a user configuration file or
1068 if included from the system configuration file.
1070 directive may appear inside a
1075 to perform conditional inclusion.
1077 Specifies the IPv4 type-of-service or DSCP class for connections.
1104 This option may take one or two arguments, separated by whitespace.
1105 If one argument is specified, it is used as the packet class unconditionally.
1106 If two values are specified, the first is automatically selected for
1107 interactive sessions and the second for non-interactive sessions.
1110 for interactive sessions and
1112 for non-interactive sessions.
1113 .It Cm KbdInteractiveAuthentication
1114 Specifies whether to use keyboard-interactive authentication.
1115 The argument to this keyword must be
1121 .It Cm KbdInteractiveDevices
1122 Specifies the list of methods to use in keyboard-interactive authentication.
1123 Multiple method names must be comma-separated.
1124 The default is to use the server specified list.
1125 The methods available vary depending on what the server supports.
1126 For an OpenSSH server,
1127 it may be zero or more of:
1132 .It Cm KexAlgorithms
1133 Specifies the available KEX (Key Exchange) algorithms.
1134 Multiple algorithms must be comma-separated.
1135 Alternately if the specified value begins with a
1137 character, then the specified methods will be appended to the default set
1138 instead of replacing them.
1140 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1141 curve25519-sha256@libssh.org,
1142 ecdh-sha2-nistp256,ecdh-sha2-nistp384,ecdh-sha2-nistp521,
1143 diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,
1144 diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,
1145 diffie-hellman-group14-sha1
1148 The list of available key exchange algorithms may also be obtained using the
1155 Specifies a command to execute on the local machine after successfully
1156 connecting to the server.
1157 The command string extends to the end of the line, and is executed with
1159 The following escape character substitutions will be performed:
1161 (local user's home directory),
1167 (host name as provided on the command line),
1171 (remote user name) or
1173 (local user name) or
1175 by a hash of the concatenation: %l%h%p%r.
1177 The command is run synchronously and does not have access to the
1181 It should not be used for interactive commands.
1183 This directive is ignored unless
1184 .Cm PermitLocalCommand
1187 Specifies that a TCP port on the local machine be forwarded over
1188 the secure channel to the specified host and port from the remote machine.
1189 The first argument must be
1191 .Oo Ar bind_address : Oc Ar port
1193 and the second argument must be
1194 .Ar host : Ns Ar hostport .
1195 IPv6 addresses can be specified by enclosing addresses in square brackets.
1196 Multiple forwardings may be specified, and additional forwardings can be
1197 given on the command line.
1198 Only the superuser can forward privileged ports.
1199 By default, the local port is bound in accordance with the
1202 However, an explicit
1204 may be used to bind the connection to a specific address.
1209 indicates that the listening port be bound for local use only, while an
1212 indicates that the port should be available from all interfaces.
1214 Gives the verbosity level that is used when logging messages from
1216 The possible values are:
1217 QUIET, FATAL, ERROR, INFO, VERBOSE, DEBUG, DEBUG1, DEBUG2, and DEBUG3.
1218 The default is INFO.
1219 DEBUG and DEBUG1 are equivalent.
1220 DEBUG2 and DEBUG3 each specify higher levels of verbose output.
1222 Specifies the MAC (message authentication code) algorithms
1223 in order of preference.
1224 The MAC algorithm is used for data integrity protection.
1225 Multiple algorithms must be comma-separated.
1226 If the specified value begins with a
1228 character, then the specified algorithms will be appended to the default set
1229 instead of replacing them.
1231 The algorithms that contain
1233 calculate the MAC after encryption (encrypt-then-mac).
1234 These are considered safer and their use recommended.
1237 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1238 umac-64-etm@openssh.com,umac-128-etm@openssh.com,
1239 hmac-sha2-256-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha2-512-etm@openssh.com,
1240 hmac-sha1-etm@openssh.com,
1241 umac-64@openssh.com,umac-128@openssh.com,
1242 hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-sha1
1245 The list of available MAC algorithms may also be obtained using the
1251 .It Cm NoHostAuthenticationForLocalhost
1252 This option can be used if the home directory is shared across machines.
1253 In this case localhost will refer to a different machine on each of
1254 the machines and the user will get many warnings about changed host keys.
1255 However, this option disables host authentication for localhost.
1256 The argument to this keyword must be
1260 The default is to check the host key for localhost.
1261 .It Cm NumberOfPasswordPrompts
1262 Specifies the number of password prompts before giving up.
1263 The argument to this keyword must be an integer.
1265 .It Cm PasswordAuthentication
1266 Specifies whether to use password authentication.
1267 The argument to this keyword must be
1273 .It Cm PermitLocalCommand
1274 Allow local command execution via the
1277 .Ic !\& Ns Ar command
1280 The argument must be
1286 .It Cm PKCS11Provider
1287 Specifies which PKCS#11 provider to use.
1288 The argument to this keyword is the PKCS#11 shared library
1290 should use to communicate with a PKCS#11 token providing the user's
1293 Specifies the port number to connect on the remote host.
1295 .It Cm PreferredAuthentications
1296 Specifies the order in which the client should try authentication methods.
1297 This allows a client to prefer one method (e.g.\&
1298 .Cm keyboard-interactive )
1299 over another method (e.g.\&
1302 .Bd -literal -offset indent
1303 gssapi-with-mic,hostbased,publickey,
1304 keyboard-interactive,password
1307 Specifies the protocol versions
1309 should support in order of preference.
1310 The possible values are
1314 Multiple versions must be comma-separated.
1315 When this option is set to
1318 will try version 2 and fall back to version 1
1319 if version 2 is not available.
1322 Protocol 1 suffers from a number of cryptographic weaknesses and should
1324 It is only offered to support legacy devices.
1326 Specifies the command to use to connect to the server.
1328 string extends to the end of the line, and is executed
1329 using the user's shell
1331 directive to avoid a lingering shell process.
1333 In the command string, any occurrence of
1335 will be substituted by the host name to
1340 by the remote user name.
1341 The command can be basically anything,
1342 and should read from its standard input and write to its standard output.
1343 It should eventually connect an
1345 server running on some machine, or execute
1348 Host key management will be done using the
1349 HostName of the host being connected (defaulting to the name typed by
1351 Setting the command to
1353 disables this option entirely.
1356 is not available for connects with a proxy command.
1358 This directive is useful in conjunction with
1360 and its proxy support.
1361 For example, the following directive would connect via an HTTP proxy at
1363 .Bd -literal -offset 3n
1364 ProxyCommand /usr/bin/nc -X connect -x 192.0.2.0:8080 %h %p
1367 Specifies one or more jump proxies as
1375 Multiple proxies may be separated by comma characters and will be visited
1377 Setting this option will cause
1379 to connect to the target host by first making a
1381 connection to the specified
1383 host and then establishing a
1384 TCP forwarding to the ultimate target from there.
1386 Note that this option will compete with the
1388 option - whichever is specified first will prevent later instances of the
1389 other from taking effect.
1390 .It Cm ProxyUseFdpass
1393 will pass a connected file descriptor back to
1395 instead of continuing to execute and pass data.
1398 .It Cm PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes
1399 Specifies the key types that will be used for public key authentication
1400 as a comma-separated pattern list.
1401 Alternately if the specified value begins with a
1403 character, then the key types after it will be appended to the default
1404 instead of replacing it.
1405 The default for this option is:
1406 .Bd -literal -offset 3n
1407 ecdsa-sha2-nistp256-cert-v01@openssh.com,
1408 ecdsa-sha2-nistp384-cert-v01@openssh.com,
1409 ecdsa-sha2-nistp521-cert-v01@openssh.com,
1410 ssh-ed25519-cert-v01@openssh.com,
1411 ssh-rsa-cert-v01@openssh.com,
1412 ssh-dss-cert-v01@openssh.com,
1413 ecdsa-sha2-nistp256,ecdsa-sha2-nistp384,
1414 ecdsa-sha2-nistp521,ssh-ed25519,
1422 may be used to list supported key types.
1423 .It Cm PubkeyAuthentication
1424 Specifies whether to try public key authentication.
1425 The argument to this keyword must be
1432 Specifies the maximum amount of data that may be transmitted before the
1433 session key is renegotiated, optionally followed a maximum amount of
1434 time that may pass before the session key is renegotiated.
1435 The first argument is specified in bytes and may have a suffix of
1440 to indicate Kilobytes, Megabytes, or Gigabytes, respectively.
1441 The default is between
1445 depending on the cipher.
1446 The optional second value is specified in seconds and may use any of the
1447 units documented in the
1448 TIME FORMATS section of
1450 The default value for
1454 which means that rekeying is performed after the cipher's default amount
1455 of data has been sent or received and no time based rekeying is done.
1456 .It Cm RemoteForward
1457 Specifies that a TCP port on the remote machine be forwarded over
1458 the secure channel to the specified host and port from the local machine.
1459 The first argument must be
1461 .Oo Ar bind_address : Oc Ar port
1463 and the second argument must be
1464 .Ar host : Ns Ar hostport .
1465 IPv6 addresses can be specified by enclosing addresses in square brackets.
1466 Multiple forwardings may be specified, and additional
1467 forwardings can be given on the command line.
1468 Privileged ports can be forwarded only when
1469 logging in as root on the remote machine.
1475 the listen port will be dynamically allocated on the server and reported
1476 to the client at run time.
1480 is not specified, the default is to only bind to loopback addresses.
1485 or an empty string, then the forwarding is requested to listen on all
1489 will only succeed if the server's
1491 option is enabled (see
1492 .Xr sshd_config 5 ) .
1494 Specifies whether to request a pseudo-tty for the session.
1495 The argument may be one of:
1497 (never request a TTY),
1499 (always request a TTY when standard input is a TTY),
1501 (always request a TTY) or
1503 (request a TTY when opening a login session).
1504 This option mirrors the
1510 .It Cm RevokedHostKeys
1511 Specifies revoked host public keys.
1512 Keys listed in this file will be refused for host authentication.
1513 Note that if this file does not exist or is not readable,
1514 then host authentication will be refused for all hosts.
1515 Keys may be specified as a text file, listing one public key per line, or as
1516 an OpenSSH Key Revocation List (KRL) as generated by
1518 For more information on KRLs, see the KEY REVOCATION LISTS section in
1520 .It Cm RhostsRSAAuthentication
1521 Specifies whether to try rhosts based authentication with RSA host
1523 The argument must be
1529 This option applies to protocol version 1 only and requires
1532 .It Cm RSAAuthentication
1533 Specifies whether to try RSA authentication.
1534 The argument to this keyword must be
1538 RSA authentication will only be
1539 attempted if the identity file exists, or an authentication agent is
1543 Note that this option applies to protocol version 1 only.
1545 Specifies what variables from the local
1547 should be sent to the server.
1548 The server must also support it, and the server must be configured to
1549 accept these environment variables.
1552 environment variable is always sent whenever a
1553 pseudo-terminal is requested as it is required by the protocol.
1558 for how to configure the server.
1559 Variables are specified by name, which may contain wildcard characters.
1560 Multiple environment variables may be separated by whitespace or spread
1564 The default is not to send any environment variables.
1568 for more information on patterns.
1569 .It Cm ServerAliveCountMax
1570 Sets the number of server alive messages (see below) which may be
1573 receiving any messages back from the server.
1574 If this threshold is reached while server alive messages are being sent,
1575 ssh will disconnect from the server, terminating the session.
1576 It is important to note that the use of server alive messages is very
1580 The server alive messages are sent through the encrypted channel
1581 and therefore will not be spoofable.
1582 The TCP keepalive option enabled by
1585 The server alive mechanism is valuable when the client or
1586 server depend on knowing when a connection has become inactive.
1588 The default value is 3.
1590 .Cm ServerAliveInterval
1591 (see below) is set to 15 and
1592 .Cm ServerAliveCountMax
1593 is left at the default, if the server becomes unresponsive,
1594 ssh will disconnect after approximately 45 seconds.
1595 .It Cm ServerAliveInterval
1596 Sets a timeout interval in seconds after which if no data has been received
1599 will send a message through the encrypted
1600 channel to request a response from the server.
1602 is 0, indicating that these messages will not be sent to the server.
1603 .It Cm StreamLocalBindMask
1604 Sets the octal file creation mode mask
1606 used when creating a Unix-domain socket file for local or remote
1608 This option is only used for port forwarding to a Unix-domain socket file.
1610 The default value is 0177, which creates a Unix-domain socket file that is
1611 readable and writable only by the owner.
1612 Note that not all operating systems honor the file mode on Unix-domain
1614 .It Cm StreamLocalBindUnlink
1615 Specifies whether to remove an existing Unix-domain socket file for local
1616 or remote port forwarding before creating a new one.
1617 If the socket file already exists and
1618 .Cm StreamLocalBindUnlink
1621 will be unable to forward the port to the Unix-domain socket file.
1622 This option is only used for port forwarding to a Unix-domain socket file.
1624 The argument must be
1630 .It Cm StrictHostKeyChecking
1631 If this flag is set to
1634 will never automatically add host keys to the
1635 .Pa ~/.ssh/known_hosts
1636 file, and refuses to connect to hosts whose host key has changed.
1637 This provides maximum protection against trojan horse attacks,
1638 though it can be annoying when the
1639 .Pa /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts
1640 file is poorly maintained or when connections to new hosts are
1642 This option forces the user to manually
1644 If this flag is set to
1646 ssh will automatically add new host keys to the
1647 user known hosts files.
1648 If this flag is set to
1651 will be added to the user known host files only after the user
1652 has confirmed that is what they really want to do, and
1653 ssh will refuse to connect to hosts whose host key has changed.
1655 known hosts will be verified automatically in all cases.
1656 The argument must be
1664 Specifies whether the system should send TCP keepalive messages to the
1666 If they are sent, death of the connection or crash of one
1667 of the machines will be properly noticed.
1668 However, this means that
1669 connections will die if the route is down temporarily, and some people
1674 (to send TCP keepalive messages), and the client will notice
1675 if the network goes down or the remote host dies.
1676 This is important in scripts, and many users want it too.
1678 To disable TCP keepalive messages, the value should be set to
1683 device forwarding between the client and the server.
1684 The argument must be
1694 requests the default tunnel mode, which is
1695 .Dq point-to-point .
1701 devices to open on the client
1706 The argument must be
1708 .Ar local_tun Op : Ar remote_tun .
1710 The devices may be specified by numerical ID or the keyword
1712 which uses the next available tunnel device.
1715 is not specified, it defaults to
1719 .It Cm UpdateHostKeys
1722 should accept notifications of additional hostkeys from the server sent
1723 after authentication has completed and add them to
1724 .Cm UserKnownHostsFile .
1725 The argument must be
1730 Enabling this option allows learning alternate hostkeys for a server
1731 and supports graceful key rotation by allowing a server to send replacement
1732 public keys before old ones are removed.
1733 Additional hostkeys are only accepted if the key used to authenticate the
1734 host was already trusted or explicitly accepted by the user.
1739 then the user is asked to confirm the modifications to the known_hosts file.
1740 Confirmation is currently incompatible with
1741 .Cm ControlPersist ,
1742 and will be disabled if it is enabled.
1746 from OpenSSH 6.8 and greater support the
1747 .Dq hostkeys@openssh.com
1748 protocol extension used to inform the client of all the server's hostkeys.
1749 .It Cm UsePrivilegedPort
1750 Specifies whether to use a privileged port for outgoing connections.
1751 The argument must be
1760 must be setuid root.
1761 Note that this option must be set to
1764 .Cm RhostsRSAAuthentication
1767 Specifies the user to log in as.
1768 This can be useful when a different user name is used on different machines.
1769 This saves the trouble of
1770 having to remember to give the user name on the command line.
1771 .It Cm UserKnownHostsFile
1772 Specifies one or more files to use for the user
1773 host key database, separated by whitespace.
1775 .Pa ~/.ssh/known_hosts ,
1776 .Pa ~/.ssh/known_hosts2 .
1777 .It Cm VerifyHostKeyDNS
1778 Specifies whether to verify the remote key using DNS and SSHFP resource
1780 If this option is set to
1782 the client will implicitly trust keys that match a secure fingerprint
1784 Insecure fingerprints will be handled as if this option was set to
1786 If this option is set to
1788 information on fingerprint match will be displayed, but the user will still
1789 need to confirm new host keys according to the
1790 .Cm StrictHostKeyChecking
1792 The argument must be
1799 if compiled with LDNS and
1803 See also VERIFYING HOST KEYS in
1805 .It Cm VersionAddendum
1806 Specifies a string to append to the regular version string to identify
1807 OS- or site-specific modifications.
1809 .Dq FreeBSD-20170902 .
1812 may be used to disable this.
1813 .It Cm VisualHostKey
1814 If this flag is set to
1816 an ASCII art representation of the remote host key fingerprint is
1817 printed in addition to the fingerprint string at login and
1818 for unknown host keys.
1819 If this flag is set to
1821 no fingerprint strings are printed at login and
1822 only the fingerprint string will be printed for unknown host keys.
1825 .It Cm XAuthLocation
1826 Specifies the full pathname of the
1830 .Pa /usr/local/bin/xauth .
1835 consists of zero or more non-whitespace characters,
1837 (a wildcard that matches zero or more characters),
1840 (a wildcard that matches exactly one character).
1841 For example, to specify a set of declarations for any host in the
1844 the following pattern could be used:
1848 The following pattern
1849 would match any host in the 192.168.0.[0-9] network range:
1851 .Dl Host 192.168.0.?
1855 is a comma-separated list of patterns.
1856 Patterns within pattern-lists may be negated
1857 by preceding them with an exclamation mark
1860 to allow a key to be used from anywhere within an organization
1864 the following entry (in authorized_keys) could be used:
1866 .Dl from=\&"!*.dialup.example.com,*.example.com\&"
1869 .It Pa ~/.ssh/config
1870 This is the per-user configuration file.
1871 The format of this file is described above.
1872 This file is used by the SSH client.
1873 Because of the potential for abuse, this file must have strict permissions:
1874 read/write for the user, and not accessible by others.
1875 .It Pa /etc/ssh/ssh_config
1876 Systemwide configuration file.
1877 This file provides defaults for those
1878 values that are not specified in the user's configuration file, and
1879 for those users who do not have a configuration file.
1880 This file must be world-readable.
1885 OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free
1886 ssh 1.2.12 release by Tatu Ylonen.
1887 Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos,
1888 Theo de Raadt and Dug Song
1889 removed many bugs, re-added newer features and
1891 Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH
1892 protocol versions 1.5 and 2.0.