6.5. Summary

In this chapter, we've seen how to create and use SSH identities, represented by key pairs, either individually (SSH-1) or in collections (SSH-2). Keys are created by ssh-keygen and are accessed by clients as needed. SSH-2 provides an additional layer of configuration, the identification file, which lets you use a set of identities as a single identity. You may have as many identities as you like.

SSH agents are useful timesavers to avoid retyping passphrases. Their operation has numerous subtleties, but once you get the hang of it, running an agent should become second nature.

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