SSH

The very first time you log into a new host you will be asked to verify that the system is the one you intended to access. The remote system will send its host key to your client as part of their handshake and your client will ask you to verify the host key fingerprint before continuing the login process. It sounds complicated, but you don’t have to worry about it! Your ssh client does all the work! Here’s an example of what you should see on that first attempt (this will vary based on your OS).

I started this post with the intention of covering basic ssh and ssh key usage at a novice level and then going on to more advanced topics such as discussing scp usage, the ssh-agent and how it’s used, tunneling, port-forwarding, proxy hoping and so on. As soon as I thought about it I realized, “Wow, this is going to take a while.” Instead of trying to tackle everything here I’m going to turn this into a series of posts, each covering a topic related to how I use ssh on a daily basis.