English
No results found.

Explore by product

Authentication
  • Get started
  • Account and profile
  • Authentication
  • Repositories
  • GitHub
  • Enterprise administrators
  • Billing and payments
  • Organizations
  • Code security
  • GitHub Issues
  • GitHub Actions
  • GitHub Codespaces
  • GitHub Packages
  • Search on GitHub
  • Developers
  • REST API
  • GraphQL API
  • GitHub CLI
  • GitHub Discussions
  • GitHub Sponsors
  • Building communities
  • GitHub Pages
  • Education
  • GitHub Desktop
  • Atom
  • Electron
  • CodeQL
  • npm
    • English
  • English
  • 简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
  • 日本語 (Japanese)
  • Español (Spanish)
  • Português do Brasil (Portuguese)

    • This version of GitHub Enterprise was discontinued on 2021-09-23. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features, upgrade to the latest version of GitHub Enterprise. For help with the upgrade, contact GitHub Enterprise support.

    Article version

    Checking for existing SSH keys

    Before you generate an SSH key, you can check to see if you have any existing SSH keys.

    Note: GitHub is improving security by dropping older, insecure key types.

    DSA keys (ssh-dss) are no longer supported. Existing keys will continue to function through March 15, 2022. You cannot add new DSA keys to your user account on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.

    RSA keys (ssh-rsa) with a valid_after before November 2, 2021 may continue to use any signature algorithm. RSA keys generated after that date must use a SHA-2 signature algorithm. Some older clients may need to be upgraded in order to use SHA-2 signatures.

    1. Open TerminalTerminalGit Bash.

    2. Enter ls -al ~/.ssh to see if existing SSH keys are present.

      $ ls -al ~/.ssh
# Lists the files in your .ssh directory, if they exist

    3. Check the directory listing to see if you already have a public SSH key. By default, the filenames of supported public keys for GitHub Enterprise Server are one of the following.

      • id_rsa.pub
      • id_ecdsa.pub
      • id_ed25519.pub

      Tip: If you receive an error that ~/.ssh doesn't exist, you do not have an existing SSH key pair in the default location. You can create a new SSH key pair in the next step.

    4. Either generate a new SSH key or upload an existing key.

      • If you don't have a supported public and private key pair, or don't wish to use any that are available, generate a new SSH key.

      • If you see an existing public and private key pair listed (for example, id_rsa.pub and id_rsa) that you would like to use to connect to GitHub Enterprise Server, you can add the key to the ssh-agent.

        For more information about generation of a new SSH key or addition of an existing key to the ssh-agent, see "Generating a new SSH key and adding it to the ssh-agent."