openssh unix dev - Aug 2024 - 'Too many authentication failures' nuisance

On Saturday, August 10, 2024 10:13 AM, Chris Green
wrote:
>I have several ssh keys in the ~/.ssh directory of my desktop machine.
>As a result whenever I try to connect to a system which uses password
>authentication I get the "Too many authentication failures" error.
>
>Yes, I know I can get round this by setting PreferredAuthentications but
this is
>rather a nuisance to have to do individually for all systems that use
password
>authentication.  It also means that I have to do it for a 'casual'
ssh
access to a system
>which I'm unlikely to access more than once.
>
>Is there any way around this problem?
Have you looked into ~/.ssh/config? You can set per-host identify files for
your keys.
There is a Match attribute you may be able to use for patterns matching your
causal
use without having to specify individual hosts for other authentication
methods.

On Sat, Aug 10, 2024 at 10:34:45AM -0400, rsbecker at nexbridge.com
wrote:
> On Saturday, August 10, 2024 10:13 AM, Chris Green wrote:
> >I have several ssh keys in the ~/.ssh directory of my desktop machine.
> >As a result whenever I try to connect to a system which uses password
> >authentication I get the "Too many authentication failures"
error.
> >
> >Yes, I know I can get round this by setting PreferredAuthentications
but
> this is
> >rather a nuisance to have to do individually for all systems that use
> password
> >authentication.  It also means that I have to do it for a
'casual' ssh
> access to a system
> >which I'm unlikely to access more than once.
> >
> >Is there any way around this problem?
> 
> Have you looked into ~/.ssh/config? You can set per-host identify files for
> your keys.
> There is a Match attribute you may be able to use for patterns matching
your
> causal
> use without having to specify individual hosts for other authentication
> methods.
> 
Tes, OK, but that means for all my default destinations I have to set
the PreferredAuthentications, plus any that I happen to want to
connect to occasionally. There's 20+ hosts in config at the moment.

-- 
Chris Green