1 How to verify host keys using OpenSSH and DNS
2 ---------------------------------------------
4 OpenSSH contains support for verifying host keys using DNS as described in
5 draft-ietf-secsh-dns-05.txt. The document contains very brief instructions
6 on how to use this feature. Configuring DNS is out of the scope of this
10 (1) Server: Generate and publish the DNS RR
12 To create a DNS resource record (RR) containing a fingerprint of the
13 public host key, use the following command:
15 ssh-keygen -r hostname -f keyfile -g
17 where "hostname" is your fully qualified hostname and "keyfile" is the
18 file containing the public host key file. If you have multiple keys,
19 you should generate one RR for each key.
21 In the example above, ssh-keygen will print the fingerprint in a
22 generic DNS RR format parsable by most modern name server
23 implementations. If your nameserver has support for the SSHFP RR
24 you can omit the -g flag and ssh-keygen will print a standard SSHFP RR.
26 To publish the fingerprint using the DNS you must add the generated RR
27 to your DNS zone file and sign your zone.
30 (2) Client: Enable ssh to verify host keys using DNS
32 To enable the ssh client to verify host keys using DNS, you have to
33 add the following option to the ssh configuration file
34 ($HOME/.ssh/config or /etc/ssh/ssh_config):
38 Upon connection the client will try to look up the fingerprint RR
39 using DNS. If the fingerprint received from the DNS server matches
40 the remote host key, the user will be notified.
47 $OpenBSD: README.dns,v 1.2 2003/10/14 19:43:23 jakob Exp $