How do I access my SSH public key?

Question

I've just generated my RSA key pair, and I wanted to add that key to GitHub.

I tried cd id_rsa.pub and id_rsa.pub, but no luck. How can I access my SSH public key?

possible duplicate of [How do I find my RSA key fingerprint?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9607295/how-do-i-find-my-rsa-key-fingerprint) — kenorb, Mar 26 '15 at 21:37
@kenorb You mean that Q is a duplicate of this? This question was asked two years earlier. :) — sscirrus, Apr 03 '15 at 16:45
Yes, the other seems to be better positioned (based on the wording, etc.), it has more views and votes within shorter period of time which indicates it's much more popular. See: [Should I vote to close a duplicate question, even though it's much newer, and has more up to date answers?](http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/147643/191655) Once duplicate, both answers could be merged into one. — kenorb, Apr 03 '15 at 17:14
`pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub` worked for me! Check this [GitHub article](https://help.github.com/articles/adding-a-new-ssh-key-to-your-github-account/) — Connor Leech, Jun 18 '18 at 17:23

Mitch Dempsey · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-18T20:43:07.213

1513

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub or cat ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub

You can list all the public keys you have by doing:

$ ls ~/.ssh/*.pub

edited Jul 18 '14 at 20:43

answered Sep 30 '10 at 06:05

Mitch Dempsey

38,725
6
68
74

14

Even though I see the file in the place it's referring to (C:/Users/Me/.ssh/.id_rsa.pub), these commands are producing an error: No such file or directory. I'm doing this from Git Bash, MyPC ~/.ssh – sscirrus Sep 30 '10 at 06:17
4

@sscirrus: In windows, you can use `type` command. Or just open the .pub file in notepad and paste it to github. – Peter Štibraný Sep 30 '10 at 06:20
Thanks a lot Peter, for the answer and the edit. Make it an answer and I'll accept :) – sscirrus Sep 30 '10 at 06:22
3

@sscirrus: accept this one ... it works as well (under unix or cygwin) – Peter Štibraný Sep 30 '10 at 06:23
42

on Mac OS X: `cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub` – karlingen Apr 09 '14 at 08:40
On Windows too, it's just `id_rsa.pub`, not *`.`*`id_rsa.pub` – laggingreflex Jul 18 '14 at 12:27
@laggingreflex I've updated the answer to be clearer – Mitch Dempsey Jul 18 '14 at 20:43
On a Mac, you can do this to copy it to your clipboard (like cmd + c so that you can cmd + v to paste) cat ~/Desktop/ded.html | pbcopy pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub – Jun Mar 28 '18 at 19:42
`$` in `$ ls ~/.ssh/*.pub` was not required on my Mac. – Eduard Nov 08 '18 at 12:14
if `ls ~/.ssh/*.pub` display nothing you need to generate your public key first. This was my issue on new machine. – Sharpey Jan 12 '21 at 12:17
Generate one if ssh key is not there already. As mentioned in one of the response. – Parthi Oct 23 '21 at 02:24

DD_ · Answer 2 · 2020-09-11T01:30:48.410

288

Copy the key to your clipboard.

$ pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
# Copies the contents of the id_rsa.pub file to your clipboard

Warning: it's important to copy the key exactly without adding newlines or whitespace. Thankfully the pbcopy command makes it easy to perform this setup perfectly.

and paste it wherever you need.

More details on the process, check: Generating SSH Keys.

edited Sep 11 '20 at 01:30

answered Jan 18 '13 at 05:28

DD_

7,230
11
38
59

7

`sudo apt-get install xclip -y` for those users who doesn't have `pbcopy` working. – therealbigpepe Jun 29 '16 at 06:20
6

`sudo apt-get install -y xclip` followed by `alias pbcopy="xclip -sel clip"` and then `pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub` OR simply `xclip -selection clipboard < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub` – gebbissimo Mar 08 '19 at 12:29
I'm getting the error "pbcopy: command not found". – Hector Feb 13 '23 at 18:46

kenorb · Answer 3 · 2015-03-28T15:02:23.887

65

You may try to run the following command to show your RSA fingerprint:

ssh-agent sh -c 'ssh-add; ssh-add -l'

or public key:

ssh-agent sh -c 'ssh-add; ssh-add -L'

If you've the message: 'The agent has no identities.', then you've to generate your RSA key by ssh-keygen first.

edited Mar 28 '15 at 15:02

answered Mar 26 '15 at 21:35

kenorb

155,785
88
678
743

3

This is good for when you don't know the path of the key beforehand. It's not always in `~/.ssh/`. – rudolfbyker Jun 25 '19 at 06:37
Tried it out, works on Mac, Win10 (in git bash) and Ubuntu. – Filip Haglund May 12 '20 at 19:22
2

Using `ssh-add -L` is by far the better option as not every SSH key is an RSA key sitting in the `~/.ssh` folder. I much prefer to use my PGP key for authentication and so I do not have a `~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub` file at all. – steinybot May 23 '20 at 02:40

score 39 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:27

39

If you're on Windows use the following, select all, and copy from a Notepad window:

notepad ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

If you're on OS X, use:

pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:27

Peter Mortensen

30,738
21
105
131

answered Mar 14 '14 at 04:20

nsuinteger

1,503
12
21

score 30 · Answer 5 · answered May 23 '21 at 21:35

30

Mac, Ubuntu, Linux compatible machines, use this command to print public key, then copy it:

$ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

answered May 23 '21 at 21:35

Tellisense

1,858
12
11

score 21 · Answer 6 · edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:25

21

Here's how I found mine on OS X:

Open a terminal
(You are in the home directory) cd .ssh (a hidden directory)
pbcopy < id_rsa.pub (this copies it to the clipboard)

If that doesn't work, do an ls and see what files are in there with a .pub extension.

edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:25

Peter Mortensen

30,738
21
105
131

answered Oct 24 '13 at 15:33

Mark

765
8
12

score 16 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 11 '18 at 16:34

On terminal cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

explanation

cat is a standard Unix utility that reads files and prints output
~ Is your Home User path
/.ssh - your hidden directory contains all your ssh certificates
id_rsa.pub OR id_dsa.pub are RSA public keys, (the private key located on the client machine). the primary key for example can be used to enable cloning project from remote repository securely to your client end point.

score 13 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 18 '14 at 00:08

13

After you generate your SSH key you can do:

cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub |pbcopy

which will copy your ssh key into your clipboard.

answered Jan 18 '14 at 00:08

Brett

558
4
11

Jghayes525 · Answer 9 · 2018-09-25T14:32:15.163

12

If you're using windows, the command is:

type %userprofile%\.ssh\id_rsa.pub

it should print the key (if you have one). You should copy the entire result. If none is present, then do:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your.email@example.com" -b 4096

edited Sep 25 '18 at 14:32

answered May 02 '18 at 12:43

Jghayes525

123
1
5

score 11 · Answer 10 · edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:31

If you are using Windows PowerShell, the easiest way is to:

cat ~/.ssh/id_<key-type-here>.pub | clip

That will copy the key to your clipboard for easy pasting.

So, in my instance, I use ed25519 since RSA is now fairly hackable:

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub | clip

Because I find myself doing this a lot, I created a function and set a simple alias I could remember in my PowerShell profile (learn more about PowerShell profiles here. Just add this to your Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1:

function Copy-SSHKey {
    Get-Content ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub | clip
}

Set_Alias -Name sshkey -Value Copy-SSHKey

Then, in a PowerShell console, run . $profile to load the functions. Then from now on all you will need to do is run sshkey, and then paste the key into wherever you need via the clipboard.

score 10 · Answer 11 · answered Nov 13 '20 at 15:58

10

If you only have your private key available, you can generate the public key from it:

ssh-keygen -y

or

ssh-keygen -y -f path/to/private_key

answered Nov 13 '20 at 15:58

Kontrollfreak

1,800
12
24

score 8 · Answer 12 · edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:33

8

The following command will save the SSH key on the clipboard. You only need to paste at the desired location.

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | pbcopy

edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:33

Peter Mortensen

30,738
21
105
131

answered Jun 29 '18 at 22:14

Prabhat Kasera

1,129
11
28

This is my favourite way. – iamkeir Dec 02 '19 at 12:45

score 7 · Answer 13 · edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:23

7

Open your id_dsa.pub or some_name.pub file with gedit and copy-paste the contents!

Just use:

~/.ssh$ gedit some_name.pub

edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:23

Peter Mortensen

30,738
21
105
131

answered Oct 21 '13 at 14:22

sbdv0

79
1
1

When i do so, its opening a blank file. Its not showing any text in it. But when i browse through file manager, i'm able to see the text. – iamprem Mar 07 '15 at 20:51

score 7 · Answer 14 · edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:30

7

Use:

# sudo su
# cd /home/user/.ssh
.ssh# gedit id_rsa.pub

Then copy the entire file without any spaces. Click your icon at the top right of the GitHub page, go to settings, and add ssh.

Paste the copy into the space. It may prompt for your GitHub password. Enter it. Save.

edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:30

Peter Mortensen

30,738
21
105
131

answered May 05 '17 at 16:16

yavorcik

111
2
5

score 7 · Answer 15 · answered Dec 17 '18 at 11:02

7

In UBUNTU +18.04

         ssh-keygen -o -t rsa -b 4096 -C "email@example.com"

And After that Just Copy And Paste

         cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

or

         cat ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub

answered Dec 17 '18 at 11:02

Shabeer K

1,489
16
23

score 6 · Answer 16 · edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:32

6

It can be found on this path (default path):

/Users/john/.ssh

john is your Mac username.

edited Aug 08 '18 at 18:32

Peter Mortensen

30,738
21
105
131

answered Feb 28 '18 at 10:08

Waseem Sarwar

2,645
1
21
18

score 4 · Answer 17 · answered Jan 05 '23 at 11:24

It is very simple. After you generated ssh key on your computer, you can access your public ssh key by following command

 cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

You should see output similar to the following:

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQCyVGaw1PuEl98f4/7Kq3O9ZIvDw2OFOSXAFVqilSFNkHlefm1iMtPeqsIBp2t9cbGUf55xNDULz/bD/4BCV43yZ5lh0cUYuXALg9NI29ui7PEGReXjSpNwUD6ceN/78YOK41KAcecq+SS0bJ4b4amKZIJG3JWmDKljtv1dmSBCrTmEAQaOorxqGGBYmZS7NQumRe4lav5r6wOs8OACMANE1ejkeZsGFzJFNqvr5DuHdDL5FAudW23me3BDmrM9ifUzzjl1Jwku3bnRaCcjaxH8oTumt1a00mWci/1qUlaVFft085yvVq7KZbF2OPPbl+erDW91+EZ2FgEi+v1/CSJ5 your_username@hostname

Also note that the public key begins with ssh-rsa and ends with your_username@hostname.

score 3 · Answer 18 · answered Dec 21 '13 at 09:30

3

Open terminal nano ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

answered Dec 21 '13 at 09:30

Nick Wood

680
6
10

score 3 · Answer 19 · answered Aug 09 '21 at 06:36

3

Just to give a new perspective to that question, if you use github, you could find your public key at: https://github.com/${USERNAME}.keys

answered Aug 09 '21 at 06:36

JOduMonT

41
3

score 3 · Answer 20 · answered Apr 04 '22 at 09:10

3

id_rsa.pub is not a directory so you can not use cd to open it.

instead you can use the command cd ~/.ssh to access the folder containing your keys, then use cat id_rsa.pub, nano id_rsa.pub or gedit id_rsa.pub to access the key file.

answered Apr 04 '22 at 09:10

Matin Onegh

81
2

Jun · Answer 21 · 2018-04-11T17:53:36.400

2

On a Mac, you can do this to copy it to your clipboard (like cmd + c shortcut)
cat ~/Desktop/ded.html | pbcopy
pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

and to paste pbpaste > ~Documents/id_rsa.txt

or, use cmd + v shorcut to paste it somewhere else.

~/.ssh is the same path as /Users/macbook-username/.ssh
You can use Print work directory: pwd command on terminal to get the path to your current directory.

edited Apr 11 '18 at 17:53

answered Mar 28 '18 at 19:43

Jun

2,942
5
28
50

score 2 · Answer 22 · answered Jun 20 '19 at 15:19

I use Git Bash for my Windows.

$ eval $(ssh-agent -s) //activates the connection

some output

$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa //adds the identity

some other output

$ clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub //THIS IS THE IMPORTANT ONE. This adds your key to your clipboard. Go back to GitHub and just paste it in, and voilá! You should be good to go.

score 1 · Answer 23 · answered Feb 26 '20 at 03:53

1

On Mac/unix and Windows:

ssh-keygen then follow the prompts. It will ask you for a name to the file (say you call it pubkey, for example). Right away, you should have your key fingerprint and your key's randomart image visible to you.

Then just use your favourite text editor and enter command vim pubkey.pub and it (your ssh-rsa key) should be there.

Replace vim with emacs or whatever other editor you have/prefer.

answered Feb 26 '20 at 03:53

sawreals

338
4
15

even though I cannot find the file on terminal or finder, opening the file with text editor works... thanks – dvdmn Jun 25 '20 at 14:58

score 0 · Answer 24 · answered Mar 24 '22 at 15:23

0

ssh-add is used to show the public key.

man ssh-add

-L  Lists public key parameters of all identities currently repre‐
    sented by the agent.

On my Linux system I copy it using xclip

ssh-add -L | xclip

answered Mar 24 '22 at 15:23

manero

1

1

Hi manero :) Welcome! There are already a number of answers arond the usage of `ssh-add`, could you provide more specifics that would make your Answer more unique? It may otherwise get flagged as a duplicate answer (not a bad thing, just a tidy up process in stackoverflow). Having said that I would suggest checking all existing answers for any overlap in your thinking in the future. Happy StackOverflowing! – tjheslin1 Mar 24 '22 at 16:53

How do I access my SSH public key?

24 Answers24

Linked