Verify SSH key file permissions

To minimize the possibility of malicious attacks, maintain critical SSH key file permissions on your virtual appliance host machines.
  1. Check the SSH public key files by running the following command:
    #ls -al /etc/ssh/*pub
  2. Verify that the files have the following permissions.
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 609
    date and time
    /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key.pub -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 181
    date and time
    /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key.pub -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 101
    date and time
    /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key.pub -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 401
    date and time
    /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key.pub
  3. Check the SSH private key files by running the following command:
    ls -al /etc/ssh/*key
  4. Verify that the files have the following permissions.
    -rw------- 1 root root 668
    date and time
    /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key -rw------- 1 root root 227
    date and time
    /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key -rw------- 1 root root 411
    date and time
    /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key -rw------- 1 root root 1679
    date and time
    /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
  5. Check the SSH configuration files by running the following command:
    #lls -al /etc/ssh/*config
  6. Verify that the files have the following permissions.
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1914
    date and time
    /etc/ssh/ssh_config -rw------- 1 root root 3481
    date and time
    /etc/ssh/sshd_config