Ubuntu Manpage: ssh_config — OpenSSH SSH client configuration files

name
synopsis
description
patterns
files
see also
authors

Provided by: openssh-client_6.6p1-2ubuntu2.13_amd64

NAME

     ssh_config — OpenSSH SSH client configuration files

SYNOPSIS

     ~/.ssh/config
     /etc/ssh/ssh_config

DESCRIPTION

ssh(1) obtains configuration data from the following sources in the following order:

1. command-line options
2. user's configuration file (~/.ssh/config)
3. system-wide configuration file (/etc/ssh/ssh_config)

For each parameter, the first obtained value will be used. The configuration files contain sections
separated by “Host” specifications, and that section is only applied for hosts that match one of the
patterns given in the specification. The matched host name is the one given on the command line.

Since the first obtained value for each parameter is used, more host-specific declarations should be given
near the beginning of the file, and general defaults at the end.

Note that the Debian openssh-client package sets several options as standard in /etc/ssh/ssh_config which
are not the default in ssh(1):

• SendEnv LANG LC_*
• HashKnownHosts yes
• GSSAPIAuthentication yes

The configuration file has the following format:

Empty lines and lines starting with ‘#’ are comments. Otherwise a line is of the format “keyword
arguments”. Configuration options may be separated by whitespace or optional whitespace and exactly one
‘=’; the latter format is useful to avoid the need to quote whitespace when specifying configuration
options using the ssh, scp, and sftp -o option. Arguments may optionally be enclosed in double quotes (")
in order to represent arguments containing spaces.

The possible keywords and their meanings are as follows (note that keywords are case-insensitive and
arguments are case-sensitive):

Host Restricts the following declarations (up to the next Host or Match keyword) to be only for those
hosts that match one of the patterns given after the keyword. If more than one pattern is
provided, they should be separated by whitespace. A single ‘*’ as a pattern can be used to provide
global defaults for all hosts. The host is the hostname argument given on the command line (i.e.
the name is not converted to a canonicalized host name before matching).

A pattern entry may be negated by prefixing it with an exclamation mark (‘!’). If a negated entry
is matched, then the Host entry is ignored, regardless of whether any other patterns on the line
match. Negated matches are therefore useful to provide exceptions for wildcard matches.

See PATTERNS for more information on patterns.

Match Restricts the following declarations (up to the next Host or Match keyword) to be used only when
the conditions following the Match keyword are satisfied. Match conditions are specified using one
or more keyword/criteria pairs or the single token all which matches all criteria. The available
keywords are: exec, host, originalhost, user, and localuser.

The exec keyword executes the specified command under the user's shell. If the command returns a
zero exit status then the condition is considered true. Commands containing whitespace characters
must be quoted. The following character sequences in the command will be expanded prior to
execution: ‘%L’ will be substituted by the first component of the local host name, ‘%l’ will be
substituted by the local host name (including any domain name), ‘%h’ will be substituted by the
target host name, ‘%n’ will be substituted by the original target host name specified on the
command-line, ‘%p’ the destination port, ‘%r’ by the remote login username, and ‘%u’ by the
username of the user running ssh(1).

The other keywords' criteria must be single entries or comma-separated lists and may use the
wildcard and negation operators described in the PATTERNS section. The criteria for the host
keyword are matched against the target hostname, after any substitution by the Hostname option.
The originalhost keyword matches against the hostname as it was specified on the command-line. The
user keyword matches against the target username on the remote host. The localuser keyword matches
against the name of the local user running ssh(1) (this keyword may be useful in system-wide
ssh_config files).

AddressFamily
Specifies which address family to use when connecting. Valid arguments are “any”, “inet” (use IPv4
only), or “inet6” (use IPv6 only).

BatchMode
If set to “yes”, passphrase/password querying will be disabled. In addition, the
ServerAliveInterval option will be set to 300 seconds by default. This option is useful in scripts
and other batch jobs where no user is present to supply the password, and where it is desirable to
detect a broken network swiftly. The argument must be “yes” or “no”. The default is “no”.

BindAddress
Use the specified address on the local machine as the source address of the connection. Only
useful on systems with more than one address. Note that this option does not work if
UsePrivilegedPort is set to “yes”.

CanonicalDomains
When CanonicalizeHostname is enabled, this option specifies the list of domain suffixes in which to
search for the specified destination host.

CanonicalizeFallbackLocal
Specifies whether to fail with an error when hostname canonicalization fails. The default, “yes”,
will attempt to look up the unqualified hostname using the system resolver's search rules. A value
of “no” will cause ssh(1) to fail instantly if CanonicalizeHostname is enabled and the target
hostname cannot be found in any of the domains specified by CanonicalDomains.

CanonicalizeHostname
Controls whether explicit hostname canonicalization is performed. The default, “no”, is not to
perform any name rewriting and let the system resolver handle all hostname lookups. If set to
“yes” then, for connections that do not use a ProxyCommand, ssh(1) will attempt to canonicalize the
hostname specified on the command line using the CanonicalDomains suffixes and
CanonicalizePermittedCNAMEs rules. If CanonicalizeHostname is set to “always”, then
canonicalization is applied to proxied connections too.

If this option is enabled and canonicalisation results in the target hostname changing, then the
configuration files are processed again using the new target name to pick up any new configuration
in matching Host stanzas.

CanonicalizeMaxDots
Specifies the maximum number of dot characters in a hostname before canonicalization is disabled.
The default, “1”, allows a single dot (i.e. hostname.subdomain).

CanonicalizePermittedCNAMEs
Specifies rules to determine whether CNAMEs should be followed when canonicalizing hostnames. The
rules consist of one or more arguments of source_domain_list:target_domain_list, where
source_domain_list is a pattern-list of domains that may follow CNAMEs in canonicalization, and
target_domain_list is a pattern-list of domains that they may resolve to.

For example, “*.a.example.com:*.b.example.com,*.c.example.com” will allow hostnames matching
“*.a.example.com” to be canonicalized to names in the “*.b.example.com” or “*.c.example.com”
domains.

ChallengeResponseAuthentication
Specifies whether to use challenge-response authentication. The argument to this keyword must be
“yes” or “no”. The default is “yes”.

CheckHostIP
If this flag is set to “yes”, ssh(1) will additionally check the host IP address in the known_hosts
file. This allows ssh to detect if a host key changed due to DNS spoofing. If the option is set
to “no”, the check will not be executed. The default is “yes”.

Cipher Specifies the cipher to use for encrypting the session in protocol version 1. Currently,
“blowfish”, “3des”, and “des” are supported. des is only supported in the ssh(1) client for
interoperability with legacy protocol 1 implementations that do not support the 3des cipher. Its
use is strongly discouraged due to cryptographic weaknesses. The default is “3des”.

Ciphers
Specifies the ciphers allowed for protocol version 2 in order of preference. Multiple ciphers must
be comma-separated. The supported ciphers are:

“3des-cbc”, “aes128-cbc”, “aes192-cbc”, “aes256-cbc”, “aes128-ctr”, “aes192-ctr”, “aes256-ctr”,
“aes128-gcm@openssh.com”, “aes256-gcm@openssh.com”, “arcfour128”, “arcfour256”, “arcfour”,
“blowfish-cbc”, “cast128-cbc”, and “chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com”.

The default is:

aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,arcfour256,arcfour128,
aes128-gcm@openssh.com,aes256-gcm@openssh.com,
chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com,
aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,aes192-cbc,
aes256-cbc,arcfour

The list of available ciphers may also be obtained using the -Q option of ssh(1).

ClearAllForwardings
Specifies that all local, remote, and dynamic port forwardings specified in the configuration files
or on the command line be cleared. This option is primarily useful when used from the ssh(1)
command line to clear port forwardings set in configuration files, and is automatically set by
scp(1) and sftp(1). The argument must be “yes” or “no”. The default is “no”.

Compression
Specifies whether to use compression. The argument must be “yes” or “no”. The default is “no”.

CompressionLevel
Specifies the compression level to use if compression is enabled. The argument must be an integer
from 1 (fast) to 9 (slow, best). The default level is 6, which is good for most applications. The
meaning of the values is the same as in gzip(1). Note that this option applies to protocol version
1 only.

ConnectionAttempts
Specifies the number of tries (one per second) to make before exiting. The argument must be an
integer. This may be useful in scripts if the connection sometimes fails. The default is 1.

ConnectTimeout
Specifies the timeout (in seconds) used when connecting to the SSH server, instead of using the
default system TCP timeout. This value is used only when the target is down or really unreachable,
not when it refuses the connection.

ControlMaster
Enables the sharing of multiple sessions over a single network connection. When set to “yes”,
ssh(1) will listen for connections on a control socket specified using the ControlPath argument.
Additional sessions can connect to this socket using the same ControlPath with ControlMaster set to
“no” (the default). These sessions will try to reuse the master instance's network connection
rather than initiating new ones, but will fall back to connecting normally if the control socket
does not exist, or is not listening.

Setting this to “ask” will cause ssh to listen for control connections, but require confirmation
using the SSH_ASKPASS program before they are accepted (see ssh-add(1) for details). If the
ControlPath cannot be opened, ssh will continue without connecting to a master instance.

X11 and ssh-agent(1) forwarding is supported over these multiplexed connections, however the
display and agent forwarded will be the one belonging to the master connection i.e. it is not
possible to forward multiple displays or agents.

Two additional options allow for opportunistic multiplexing: try to use a master connection but
fall back to creating a new one if one does not already exist. These options are: “auto” and
“autoask”. The latter requires confirmation like the “ask” option.

ControlPath
Specify the path to the control socket used for connection sharing as described in the
ControlMaster section above or the string “none” to disable connection sharing. In the path, ‘%L’
will be substituted by the first component of the local host name, ‘%l’ will be substituted by the
local host name (including any domain name), ‘%h’ will be substituted by the target host name, ‘%n’
will be substituted by the original target host name specified on the command line, ‘%p’ the
destination port, ‘%r’ by the remote login username, and ‘%u’ by the username of the user running
ssh(1). It is recommended that any ControlPath used for opportunistic connection sharing include
at least %h, %p, and %r. This ensures that shared connections are uniquely identified.

ControlPersist
When used in conjunction with ControlMaster, specifies that the master connection should remain
open in the background (waiting for future client connections) after the initial client connection
has been closed. If set to “no”, then the master connection will not be placed into the
background, and will close as soon as the initial client connection is closed. If set to “yes”,
then the master connection will remain in the background indefinitely (until killed or closed via a
mechanism such as the ssh(1) “-O exit” option). If set to a time in seconds, or a time in any of
the formats documented in sshd_config(5), then the backgrounded master connection will
automatically terminate after it has remained idle (with no client connections) for the specified
time.

DynamicForward
Specifies that a TCP port on the local machine be forwarded over the secure channel, and the
application protocol is then used to determine where to connect to from the remote machine.

The argument must be [bind_address:]port. IPv6 addresses can be specified by enclosing addresses
in square brackets. By default, the local port is bound in accordance with the GatewayPorts
setting. However, an explicit bind_address may be used to bind the connection to a specific
address. The bind_address of “localhost” indicates that the listening port be bound for local use
only, while an empty address or ‘*’ indicates that the port should be available from all
interfaces.

Currently the SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 protocols are supported, and ssh(1) will act as a SOCKS server.
Multiple forwardings may be specified, and additional forwardings can be given on the command line.
Only the superuser can forward privileged ports.

EnableSSHKeysign
Setting this option to “yes” in the global client configuration file /etc/ssh/ssh_config enables
the use of the helper program ssh-keysign(8) during HostbasedAuthentication. The argument must be
“yes” or “no”. The default is “no”. This option should be placed in the non-hostspecific section.
See ssh-keysign(8) for more information.

EscapeChar
Sets the escape character (default: ‘~’). The escape character can also be set on the command
line. The argument should be a single character, ‘^’ followed by a letter, or “none” to disable
the escape character entirely (making the connection transparent for binary data).

ExitOnForwardFailure
Specifies whether ssh(1) should terminate the connection if it cannot set up all requested dynamic,
tunnel, local, and remote port forwardings. The argument must be “yes” or “no”. The default is
“no”.

ForwardAgent
Specifies whether the connection to the authentication agent (if any) will be forwarded to the
remote machine. The argument must be “yes” or “no”. The default is “no”.

Agent forwarding should be enabled with caution. Users with the ability to bypass file permissions
on the remote host (for the agent's Unix-domain socket) can access the local agent through the
forwarded connection. An attacker cannot obtain key material from the agent, however they can
perform operations on the keys that enable them to authenticate using the identities loaded into
the agent.

ForwardX11
Specifies whether X11 connections will be automatically redirected over the secure channel and
DISPLAY set. The argument must be “yes” or “no”. The default is “no”.

X11 forwarding should be enabled with caution. Users with the ability to bypass file permissions
on the remote host (for the user's X11 authorization database) can access the local X11 display
through the forwarded connection. An attacker may then be able to perform activities such as
keystroke monitoring if the ForwardX11Trusted option is also enabled.

ForwardX11Timeout
Specify a timeout for untrusted X11 forwarding using the format described in the TIME FORMATS
section of sshd_config(5). X11 connections received by ssh(1) after this time will be refused.
The default is to disable untrusted X11 forwarding after twenty minutes has elapsed.

ForwardX11Trusted
If this option is set to “yes”, remote X11 clients will have full access to the original X11
display.

If this option is set to “no”, remote X11 clients will be considered untrusted and prevented from
stealing or tampering with data belonging to trusted X11 clients. Furthermore, the xauth(1) token
used for the session will be set to expire after 20 minutes. Remote clients will be refused access
after this time.

The default is “yes” (Debian-specific).

See the X11 SECURITY extension specification for full details on the restrictions imposed on
untrusted clients.

GatewayPorts
Specifies whether remote hosts are allowed to connect to local forwarded ports. By default, ssh(1)
binds local port forwardings to the loopback address. This prevents other remote hosts from
connecting to forwarded ports. GatewayPorts can be used to specify that ssh should bind local port
forwardings to the wildcard address, thus allowing remote hosts to connect to forwarded ports. The
argument must be “yes” or “no”. The default is “no”.

GlobalKnownHostsFile
Specifies one or more files to use for the global host key database, separated by whitespace. The
default is /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts, /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts2.

GSSAPIAuthentication
Specifies whether user authentication based on GSSAPI is allowed. The default is “no”. Note that
this option applies to protocol version 2 only.

GSSAPIKeyExchange
Specifies whether key exchange based on GSSAPI may be used. When using GSSAPI key exchange the
server need not have a host key. The default is “no”. Note that this option applies to protocol
version 2 only.

GSSAPIClientIdentity
If set, specifies the GSSAPI client identity that ssh should use when connecting to the server. The
default is unset, which means that the default identity will be used.

GSSAPIServerIdentity
If set, specifies the GSSAPI server identity that ssh should expect when connecting to the server.
The default is unset, which means that the expected GSSAPI server identity will be determined from
the target hostname.

GSSAPIDelegateCredentials
Forward (delegate) credentials to the server. The default is “no”. Note that this option applies
to protocol version 2 connections using GSSAPI.

GSSAPIRenewalForcesRekey
If set to “yes” then renewal of the client's GSSAPI credentials will force the rekeying of the ssh
connection. With a compatible server, this can delegate the renewed credentials to a session on the
server. The default is “no”.

GSSAPITrustDns
Set to “yes to indicate that the DNS is trusted to securely canonicalize” the name of the host
being connected to. If “no, the hostname entered on the” command line will be passed untouched to
the GSSAPI library. The default is “no”. This option only applies to protocol version 2
connections using GSSAPI.

HashKnownHosts
Indicates that ssh(1) should hash host names and addresses when they are added to
~/.ssh/known_hosts. These hashed names may be used normally by ssh(1) and sshd(8), but they do not
reveal identifying information should the file's contents be disclosed. The default is “no”. Note
that existing names and addresses in known hosts files will not be converted automatically, but may
be manually hashed using ssh-keygen(1). Use of this option may break facilities such as tab-
completion that rely on being able to read unhashed host names from ~/.ssh/known_hosts.

HostbasedAuthentication
Specifies whether to try rhosts based authentication with public key authentication. The argument
must be “yes” or “no”. The default is “no”. This option applies to protocol version 2 only and is
similar to RhostsRSAAuthentication.

HostKeyAlgorithms
Specifies the protocol version 2 host key algorithms that the client wants to use in order of
preference. The default for this option is:

ecdsa-sha2-nistp256-cert-v01@openssh.com,
ecdsa-sha2-nistp384-cert-v01@openssh.com,
ecdsa-sha2-nistp521-cert-v01@openssh.com,
ssh-ed25519-cert-v01@openssh.com,
ssh-rsa-cert-v01@openssh.com,ssh-dss-cert-v01@openssh.com,
ssh-rsa-cert-v00@openssh.com,ssh-dss-cert-v00@openssh.com,
ecdsa-sha2-nistp256,ecdsa-sha2-nistp384,ecdsa-sha2-nistp521,
ssh-ed25519,ssh-rsa,ssh-dss

If hostkeys are known for the destination host then this default is modified to prefer their
algorithms.

HostKeyAlias
Specifies an alias that should be used instead of the real host name when looking up or saving the
host key in the host key database files. This option is useful for tunneling SSH connections or
for multiple servers running on a single host.

HostName
Specifies the real host name to log into. This can be used to specify nicknames or abbreviations
for hosts. If the hostname contains the character sequence ‘%h’, then this will be replaced with
the host name specified on the command line (this is useful for manipulating unqualified names).
The default is the name given on the command line. Numeric IP addresses are also permitted (both
on the command line and in HostName specifications).

IdentitiesOnly
Specifies that ssh(1) should only use the authentication identity files configured in the
ssh_config files, even if ssh-agent(1) or a PKCS11Provider offers more identities. The argument to
this keyword must be “yes” or “no”. This option is intended for situations where ssh-agent offers
many different identities. The default is “no”.

IdentityFile
Specifies a file from which the user's DSA, ECDSA, ED25519 or RSA authentication identity is read.
The default is ~/.ssh/identity for protocol version 1, and ~/.ssh/id_dsa, ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa,
~/.ssh/id_ed25519 and ~/.ssh/id_rsa for protocol version 2. Additionally, any identities
represented by the authentication agent will be used for authentication unless IdentitiesOnly is
set. ssh(1) will try to load certificate information from the filename obtained by appending
-cert.pub to the path of a specified IdentityFile.

The file name may use the tilde syntax to refer to a user's home directory or one of the following
escape characters: ‘%d’ (local user's home directory), ‘%u’ (local user name), ‘%l’ (local host
name), ‘%h’ (remote host name) or ‘%r’ (remote user name).

It is possible to have multiple identity files specified in configuration files; all these
identities will be tried in sequence. Multiple IdentityFile directives will add to the list of
identities tried (this behaviour differs from that of other configuration directives).

IdentityFile may be used in conjunction with IdentitiesOnly to select which identities in an agent
are offered during authentication.

IgnoreUnknown
Specifies a pattern-list of unknown options to be ignored if they are encountered in configuration
parsing. This may be used to suppress errors if ssh_config contains options that are unrecognised
by ssh(1). It is recommended that IgnoreUnknown be listed early in the configuration file as it
will not be applied to unknown options that appear before it.

IPQoS Specifies the IPv4 type-of-service or DSCP class for connections. Accepted values are “af11”,
“af12”, “af13”, “af21”, “af22”, “af23”, “af31”, “af32”, “af33”, “af41”, “af42”, “af43”, “cs0”,
“cs1”, “cs2”, “cs3”, “cs4”, “cs5”, “cs6”, “cs7”, “ef”, “lowdelay”, “throughput”, “reliability”, or
a numeric value. This option may take one or two arguments, separated by whitespace. If one
argument is specified, it is used as the packet class unconditionally. If two values are
specified, the first is automatically selected for interactive sessions and the second for non-
interactive sessions. The default is “lowdelay” for interactive sessions and “throughput” for non-
interactive sessions.

KbdInteractiveAuthentication
Specifies whether to use keyboard-interactive authentication. The argument to this keyword must be
“yes” or “no”. The default is “yes”.

KbdInteractiveDevices
Specifies the list of methods to use in keyboard-interactive authentication. Multiple method names
must be comma-separated. The default is to use the server specified list. The methods available
vary depending on what the server supports. For an OpenSSH server, it may be zero or more of:
“bsdauth”, “pam”, and “skey”.

KexAlgorithms
Specifies the available KEX (Key Exchange) algorithms. Multiple algorithms must be comma-
separated. The default is:

curve25519-sha256@libssh.org,
ecdh-sha2-nistp256,ecdh-sha2-nistp384,ecdh-sha2-nistp521,
diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,
diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,
diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,
diffie-hellman-group1-sha1

LocalCommand
Specifies a command to execute on the local machine after successfully connecting to the server.
The command string extends to the end of the line, and is executed with the user's shell. The
following escape character substitutions will be performed: ‘%d’ (local user's home directory),
‘%h’ (remote host name), ‘%l’ (local host name), ‘%n’ (host name as provided on the command line),
‘%p’ (remote port), ‘%r’ (remote user name) or ‘%u’ (local user name).

The command is run synchronously and does not have access to the session of the ssh(1) that spawned
it. It should not be used for interactive commands.

This directive is ignored unless PermitLocalCommand has been enabled.

LocalForward
Specifies that a TCP port on the local machine be forwarded over the secure channel to the
specified host and port from the remote machine. The first argument must be [bind_address:]port
and the second argument must be host:hostport. IPv6 addresses can be specified by enclosing
addresses in square brackets. Multiple forwardings may be specified, and additional forwardings
can be given on the command line. Only the superuser can forward privileged ports. By default,
the local port is bound in accordance with the GatewayPorts setting. However, an explicit
bind_address may be used to bind the connection to a specific address. The bind_address of
“localhost” indicates that the listening port be bound for local use only, while an empty address
or ‘*’ indicates that the port should be available from all interfaces.

LogLevel
Gives the verbosity level that is used when logging messages from ssh(1). The possible values are:
QUIET, FATAL, ERROR, INFO, VERBOSE, DEBUG, DEBUG1, DEBUG2, and DEBUG3. The default is INFO. DEBUG
and DEBUG1 are equivalent. DEBUG2 and DEBUG3 each specify higher levels of verbose output.

MACs Specifies the MAC (message authentication code) algorithms in order of preference. The MAC
algorithm is used in protocol version 2 for data integrity protection. Multiple algorithms must be
comma-separated. The algorithms that contain “-etm” calculate the MAC after encryption (encrypt-
then-mac). These are considered safer and their use recommended. The default is:

hmac-md5-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha1-etm@openssh.com,
umac-64-etm@openssh.com,umac-128-etm@openssh.com,
hmac-sha2-256-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha2-512-etm@openssh.com,
hmac-ripemd160-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha1-96-etm@openssh.com,
hmac-md5-96-etm@openssh.com,
hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,umac-64@openssh.com,umac-128@openssh.com,
hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-ripemd160,
hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96

NoHostAuthenticationForLocalhost
This option can be used if the home directory is shared across machines. In this case localhost
will refer to a different machine on each of the machines and the user will get many warnings about
changed host keys. However, this option disables host authentication for localhost. The argument
to this keyword must be “yes” or “no”. The default is to check the host key for localhost.

NumberOfPasswordPrompts
Specifies the number of password prompts before giving up. The argument to this keyword must be an
integer. The default is 3.

PasswordAuthentication
Specifies whether to use password authentication. The argument to this keyword must be “yes” or
“no”. The default is “yes”.

PermitLocalCommand
Allow local command execution via the LocalCommand option or using the !command escape sequence in
ssh(1). The argument must be “yes” or “no”. The default is “no”.

PKCS11Provider
Specifies which PKCS#11 provider to use. The argument to this keyword is the PKCS#11 shared
library ssh(1) should use to communicate with a PKCS#11 token providing the user's private RSA key.

Port Specifies the port number to connect on the remote host. The default is 22.

PreferredAuthentications
Specifies the order in which the client should try protocol 2 authentication methods. This allows
a client to prefer one method (e.g. keyboard-interactive) over another method (e.g. password). The
default is:

gssapi-with-mic,hostbased,publickey,
keyboard-interactive,password

Protocol
Specifies the protocol versions ssh(1) should support in order of preference. The possible values
are ‘1’ and ‘2’. Multiple versions must be comma-separated. When this option is set to “2,1” ssh
will try version 2 and fall back to version 1 if version 2 is not available. The default is ‘2’.

ProxyCommand
Specifies the command to use to connect to the server. The command string extends to the end of
the line, and is executed with the user's shell. In the command string, any occurrence of ‘%h’
will be substituted by the host name to connect, ‘%p’ by the port, and ‘%r’ by the remote user
name. The command can be basically anything, and should read from its standard input and write to
its standard output. It should eventually connect an sshd(8) server running on some machine, or
execute sshd -i somewhere. Host key management will be done using the HostName of the host being
connected (defaulting to the name typed by the user). Setting the command to “none” disables this
option entirely. Note that CheckHostIP is not available for connects with a proxy command.

This directive is useful in conjunction with nc(1) and its proxy support. For example, the
following directive would connect via an HTTP proxy at 192.0.2.0:

ProxyCommand /usr/bin/nc -X connect -x 192.0.2.0:8080 %h %p

ProxyUseFdpass
Specifies that ProxyCommand will pass a connected file descriptor back to ssh(1) instead of
continuing to execute and pass data. The default is “no”.

PubkeyAuthentication
Specifies whether to try public key authentication. The argument to this keyword must be “yes” or
“no”. The default is “yes”. This option applies to protocol version 2 only.

RekeyLimit
Specifies the maximum amount of data that may be transmitted before the session key is
renegotiated, optionally followed a maximum amount of time that may pass before the session key is
renegotiated. The first argument is specified in bytes and may have a suffix of ‘K’, ‘M’, or ‘G’
to indicate Kilobytes, Megabytes, or Gigabytes, respectively. The default is between ‘1G’ and
‘4G’, depending on the cipher. The optional second value is specified in seconds and may use any
of the units documented in the TIME FORMATS section of sshd_config(5). The default value for
RekeyLimit is “default none”, which means that rekeying is performed after the cipher's default
amount of data has been sent or received and no time based rekeying is done. This option applies
to protocol version 2 only.

RemoteForward
Specifies that a TCP port on the remote machine be forwarded over the secure channel to the
specified host and port from the local machine. The first argument must be [bind_address:]port and
the second argument must be host:hostport. IPv6 addresses can be specified by enclosing addresses
in square brackets. Multiple forwardings may be specified, and additional forwardings can be given
on the command line. Privileged ports can be forwarded only when logging in as root on the remote
machine.

If the port argument is ‘0’, the listen port will be dynamically allocated on the server and
reported to the client at run time.

If the bind_address is not specified, the default is to only bind to loopback addresses. If the
bind_address is ‘*’ or an empty string, then the forwarding is requested to listen on all
interfaces. Specifying a remote bind_address will only succeed if the server's GatewayPorts option
is enabled (see sshd_config(5)).

RequestTTY
Specifies whether to request a pseudo-tty for the session. The argument may be one of: “no” (never
request a TTY), “yes” (always request a TTY when standard input is a TTY), “force” (always request
a TTY) or “auto” (request a TTY when opening a login session). This option mirrors the -t and -T
flags for ssh(1).

RhostsRSAAuthentication
Specifies whether to try rhosts based authentication with RSA host authentication. The argument
must be “yes” or “no”. The default is “no”. This option applies to protocol version 1 only and
requires ssh(1) to be setuid root.

RSAAuthentication
Specifies whether to try RSA authentication. The argument to this keyword must be “yes” or “no”.
RSA authentication will only be attempted if the identity file exists, or an authentication agent
is running. The default is “yes”. Note that this option applies to protocol version 1 only.

SendEnv
Specifies what variables from the local environ(7) should be sent to the server. Note that
environment passing is only supported for protocol 2. The server must also support it, and the
server must be configured to accept these environment variables. Refer to AcceptEnv in
sshd_config(5) for how to configure the server. Variables are specified by name, which may contain
wildcard characters. Multiple environment variables may be separated by whitespace or spread
across multiple SendEnv directives. The default is not to send any environment variables.

See PATTERNS for more information on patterns.

ServerAliveCountMax
Sets the number of server alive messages (see below) which may be sent without ssh(1) receiving any
messages back from the server. If this threshold is reached while server alive messages are being
sent, ssh will disconnect from the server, terminating the session. It is important to note that
the use of server alive messages is very different from TCPKeepAlive (below). The server alive
messages are sent through the encrypted channel and therefore will not be spoofable. The TCP
keepalive option enabled by TCPKeepAlive is spoofable. The server alive mechanism is valuable when
the client or server depend on knowing when a connection has become inactive.

The default value is 3. If, for example, ServerAliveInterval (see below) is set to 15 and
ServerAliveCountMax is left at the default, if the server becomes unresponsive, ssh will disconnect
after approximately 45 seconds. This option applies to protocol version 2 only; in protocol
version 1 there is no mechanism to request a response from the server to the server alive messages,
so disconnection is the responsibility of the TCP stack.

ServerAliveInterval
Sets a timeout interval in seconds after which if no data has been received from the server, ssh(1)
will send a message through the encrypted channel to request a response from the server. The
default is 0, indicating that these messages will not be sent to the server, or 300 if the
BatchMode option is set. This option applies to protocol version 2 only. ProtocolKeepAlives and
SetupTimeOut are Debian-specific compatibility aliases for this option.

StrictHostKeyChecking
If this flag is set to “yes”, ssh(1) will never automatically add host keys to the
~/.ssh/known_hosts file, and refuses to connect to hosts whose host key has changed. This provides
maximum protection against trojan horse attacks, though it can be annoying when the
/etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts file is poorly maintained or when connections to new hosts are frequently
made. This option forces the user to manually add all new hosts. If this flag is set to “no”, ssh
will automatically add new host keys to the user known hosts files. If this flag is set to “ask”,
new host keys will be added to the user known host files only after the user has confirmed that is
what they really want to do, and ssh will refuse to connect to hosts whose host key has changed.
The host keys of known hosts will be verified automatically in all cases. The argument must be
“yes”, “no”, or “ask”. The default is “ask”.

TCPKeepAlive
Specifies whether the system should send TCP keepalive messages to the other side. If they are
sent, death of the connection or crash of one of the machines will be properly noticed. This
option only uses TCP keepalives (as opposed to using ssh level keepalives), so takes a long time to
notice when the connection dies. As such, you probably want the ServerAliveInterval option as
well. However, this means that connections will die if the route is down temporarily, and some
people find it annoying.

The default is “yes” (to send TCP keepalive messages), and the client will notice if the network
goes down or the remote host dies. This is important in scripts, and many users want it too.

To disable TCP keepalive messages, the value should be set to “no”.

Tunnel Request tun(4) device forwarding between the client and the server. The argument must be “yes”,
“point-to-point” (layer 3), “ethernet” (layer 2), or “no”. Specifying “yes” requests the default
tunnel mode, which is “point-to-point”. The default is “no”.

TunnelDevice
Specifies the tun(4) devices to open on the client (local_tun) and the server (remote_tun).

The argument must be local_tun[:remote_tun]. The devices may be specified by numerical ID or the
keyword “any”, which uses the next available tunnel device. If remote_tun is not specified, it
defaults to “any”. The default is “any:any”.

UsePrivilegedPort
Specifies whether to use a privileged port for outgoing connections. The argument must be “yes” or
“no”. The default is “no”. If set to “yes”, ssh(1) must be setuid root. Note that this option
must be set to “yes” for RhostsRSAAuthentication with older servers.

User Specifies the user to log in as. This can be useful when a different user name is used on
different machines. This saves the trouble of having to remember to give the user name on the
command line.

UserKnownHostsFile
Specifies one or more files to use for the user host key database, separated by whitespace. The
default is ~/.ssh/known_hosts, ~/.ssh/known_hosts2.

VerifyHostKeyDNS
Specifies whether to verify the remote key using DNS and SSHFP resource records. If this option is
set to “yes”, the client will implicitly trust keys that match a secure fingerprint from DNS.
Insecure fingerprints will be handled as if this option was set to “ask”. If this option is set to
“ask”, information on fingerprint match will be displayed, but the user will still need to confirm
new host keys according to the StrictHostKeyChecking option. The argument must be “yes”, “no”, or
“ask”. The default is “no”. Note that this option applies to protocol version 2 only.

PATTERNS

     A pattern consists of zero or more non-whitespace characters, ‘*’ (a wildcard that matches zero or more
     characters), or ‘?’ (a wildcard that matches exactly one character).  For example, to specify a set of
     declarations for any host in the “.co.uk” set of domains, the following pattern could be used:

           Host *.co.uk

     The following pattern would match any host in the 192.168.0.[0-9] network range:

           Host 192.168.0.?

     A pattern-list is a comma-separated list of patterns.  Patterns within pattern-lists may be negated by
     preceding them with an exclamation mark (‘!’).  For example, to allow a key to be used from anywhere within
     an organization except from the “dialup” pool, the following entry (in authorized_keys) could be used:

           from="!*.dialup.example.com,*.example.com"

FILES

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

     /etc/ssh/ssh_config
             Systemwide configuration file.  This file provides defaults for those values that are not specified
             in the user's configuration file, and for those users who do not have a configuration file.  This
             file must be world-readable.

AUTHORS

     OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by Tatu Ylonen.  Aaron Campbell, Bob
     Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo de Raadt and Dug Song removed many bugs, re-added newer features
     and created OpenSSH.  Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol versions 1.5 and 2.0.