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How to Set Up SSH Certificate Authority

6 min read
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Jun 10, 2026

Step 1: Generate CA Key Pair

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f my_ca

Step 2: Configure SSH Daemon to Trust CA

echo "TrustedUserCAKeys /etc/ssh/my_ca.pub" | sudo tee -a /etc/ssh/sshd_config
sudo systemctl restart sshd

Step 3: Sign User Keys

ssh-keygen -s my_ca -I username@domain -n username -V +52w user_key.pub

Step 4: User Uses Signed Key

ssh -i user_key -o CertificateFile=user_key-cert.pub username@server

Step 5: Revoke Certificates

ssh-keygen -k -f revoked -u user_key-cert.pub
echo "RevokedKeys /etc/ssh/revoked" >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config

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