Should chmod 644 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys be chmod 600?

Exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

Something that has always mystified me...

If ~/.ssh is set to 700 (only file owner can "read,write,execute(open)" the directory, then it seems setting 644 (owner can read/write, group and world can read) is pointless since the world and the group can't even get into the directory where the file is stored. Yet, 700 on the .ssh directory and 644 on authorized_keys is a common recommendation. It just doesn't make sense to me.

So... I was about to follow suit here, and then remembered that there is always man ssh, and the man file says this:

~/.ssh/
        This directory is the default location for all user-specific con-
        figuration and authentication information.  There is no general
        requirement to keep the entire contents of this directory secret,
        but the recommended permissions are read/write/execute for the
        user, and not accessible by others.


 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
        Lists the public keys (DSA, ECDSA, Ed25519, RSA) that can be used
        for logging in as this user.  The format of this file is
        described in the sshd(8) manual page.  This file is not highly
        sensitive, but the recommended permissions are read/write for the
        user, and not accessible by others.


~/.ssh/id_dsa
 ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa
 ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
        Contains the private key for authentication.  These files contain
        sensitive data and should be readable by the user but not acces-
        sible by others (read/write/execute).  ssh will simply ignore a
        private key file if it is accessible by others.  It is possible
        to specify a passphrase when generating the key which will be
        used to encrypt the sensitive part of this file using AES-128.

~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub
~/.ssh/id_ecdsa.pub
~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
        Contains the public key for authentication.  These files are not
        sensitive and can (but need not) be readable by anyone.

Based on this excerpt, it is required that the .ssh directory be 700 and the private key files be 600, but it is easier to remember, and will be fully functional, to be utterly restrictive and use 700 on the .ssh directory and 600 on ALL the files.

Thus:

 $ chmod 700 .ssh
 $ cd .ssh
 $ chmod 600 *

Should be all you need.

Thus:

 $ chmod 700 .ssh
 $ cd .ssh
 $ chmod 600 *

Should be all you need.

Well, while this is probably a valid configuration for your user, you'll soon run into problems if your public-key files are not readable by applications and processes that possibly / often run in a different user context e.g. as a different "user" internally in the OS and needs to access your public keys for things like signing and / or verifying files using ssh.

The original gist has the most common and flexible enough permission setup, and is the way most systems, programmers and software expect the permissions to be set.

This certainly helped @grenade. Thanks!

thanks. saved me before the holiday ;-)

Got the gist of it 👍

Bravo, nice gist!

I think maybe add this
chmod 700 /home/$USER

I met a lot of users, type command like this
chmod -R 777 /home/$USER

Thanks, this helped!

Surely you must have meant? 😉

chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/*
chmod 644 -f ~/.ssh/*.pub ~/.ssh/authorized_keys ~/.ssh/known_hosts

thanks

Thank you ,this helps me!

A great time saver on every new env setup I have

OMG after a weekend trying to work this out, you're a lifesaver @grenade!! I was holding my breath but hey, flawless code. Cheers!

Don't forget the home directory!

755 for the home directory /home/USER ? Y or N ?

For .SSH Folder :

cd ~/
sudo chmod -R 700 .ssh/
sudo chown -R user:user .ssh/

For .SSH Files

cd ~/.ssh/
sudo find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} ;
sudo chmod -R 600 *.priv
sudo chmod -R 600 *.config

chmod 644 ~/.ssh/config seems to be incorrect according to http://linuxcommand.org/lc3_man_pages/ssh1.html which says:

Because of the potential for abuse,
this file must have strict
permissions: read/write for the
user, and not accessible by others.

That should be chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config instead

Thanks!

Thanks a lot

Thanks :)

consider to add this

chmod g-w,o-w /home/$USER
or 
chmod g-w,o-w ~/

This is a great trick, always going back here to remember and to fix ssh permissions;

Thank you ✌️

Thank you so much for this gist man, amazing.

Thanks for those simple but important commands. It saved me from craziness :)

@ajorpheus

chmod 644 ~/.ssh/config seems to be incorrect according to http://linuxcommand.org/lc3_man_pages/ssh1.html which says:

Because of the potential for abuse,
this file must have strict
permissions: read/write for the
user, and not accessible by others.

That should be chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config instead

Beware that the man pages will vary from one version to another. For example, the man page on Ubuntu Bionic says:

 ~/.ssh/config
        This is the per-user configuration file.  The file format and configuration options
        are described in ssh_config(5).  Because of the potential for abuse, this file must
        have strict permissions: read/write for the user, and not writable by others.  It may
        be group-writable provided that the group in question contains only the user.

Which would mean either chmod 644 ~/.ssh/config or chmod 664 ~/.ssh/config if the file group contains only your user.

Overall, safer is better and you should lock the files down as much as possible for your environment.

Works like a charm. Thanks dude!

You saved my day, thanks a lot! xD

Thank you very much for sharing this information :D