Re: ssh issue that I don't understand

[Chris Green <cl@isbd.net>]

Alexander V. Makartsev <avbetev@gmail.com> wrote:
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> 
> On 7/6/26 00:19, Chris Green wrote:
> > This isn't a problem as such but I don't understand why it's happening
> > and I'd like to understand.
> >
> > I have a VPS called isbd.biz and I access it using ssh.  My user
> > account on both my local machine (desktop and laptop) is 'chris' and
> > my user account on isbd.biz is also 'chris'.
> >
> > I have account 'chris' on isbd.biz set up to allow login only using
> > public key authentication.
> >
> > The ip address of isbd.biz is 213.171.194.64.
> >
> > If I log in with 'ssh 213.171.194.64' I, correctly, get prompted for
> > my local system's public key passphrase and I can log in successfully.
> >
> > However if I try 'ssh isbd.biz' I get prompted for"chris@isbd.biz's password" 
> which doesn't exist and I can't log in. 
> >
> > 'host isbd.biz' returns the correct IP address for isbd.biz so why
> > does ssh not work using the name rather than the IP address?
> >
> Check your ssh client config file (should be at /home/chris/.ssh/config)
> You probably didn't setup it for the host isbd.biz, or didn't put the 
> IdentityFile directive correctly.
> The host entry in your case should look like this:
> 
> Host isbd.biz
>    HostName isbd.biz
>    Port 22
>    User chris
>    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/my-ssh-key-for-isbd-biz.key
> 
But that's all default settings. Sites work without entries in
~/.ssh/config if the configuration is as you've shown above.

-- 
Chris Green
·