ssh-copy-id makes it easy to transfer a public key to a remote machine.

Is there any equivalent tool for moving a private key?

update

Don't do this! (see answer)

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+1 for reminding me to use ssh-copy-id to copy a public key – rymo Oct 17 '11 at 1:57
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migrated from stackoverflow.com Sep 27 '11 at 18:00

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1 Answer

up vote 5 down vote accepted

Good practice says that you shouldn't copy private keys from one machine to another. When you need access from a new client machine, create a new key on that machine, and set up the corresponding public key in your ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file on the server.

Doing this allows you to disable access from one client machine at a time, if you need to (suppose a laptop was stolen, for example).

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ah okay, true :) – John Sep 27 '11 at 17:28
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