Month: July 2017

SSH

ssh is the command you use to connect to remote machines – the client.

sshd is the daemon that is running and allows others to connect to the machine – the server.

When you work on a Linux system, you play with SSH program on daily basis. You will be required to configure ssh client or ssh daemon on your Linux box to make it work properly. In each Linux distribution (Debian, Redhat and so on), there are two configuration files ssh_config and sshd_config for SSH program. What is the difference between ssh_config and sshd_config?

ssh_config: configuration file for the ssh client on the host machine you are running. For example, if you want to ssh to another remote host machine, you use a SSH client. Every settings for this SSH client will be using ssh_config, such as port number, protocol version and encryption/MAC algorithms.

sshd_config: configuration file for the sshd daemon (the program that listens to any incoming connection request to the ssh port) on the host machine. That is to say, if someone wants to connect to your host machine via SSH, their SSH client settings must match your sshd_config settings in order to communicate with you, such as port number, version and so on.