OpenSSH certificates
The documentation for OpenSSH certificates (introduced in OpenSSH 5.4) are, shall we say, a bit lacking. So I'm writing down the essentials of what they are and how to use them.
What they are NOT
They're not SSH PubkeyAuthentication
In other words if your .pub file doesn't end in -cert.pub
and you haven't used ssh-keygen -s, then you aren't using certificates.
They're not SSL
Still the same SSH protocol.
They're not PEM, x509 ASN.1 or any other insane format
This means you cannot get your keys signed by Verisign
or any other root CA. And you cannot use multiple levels of CA.
They're not easy to google for
Most hits will be about normal pubkey authentication. Some
will be about older patches to one SSH implementation or
another that added some form of PKI, even x509 support.
You'll probably have the most luck googling for
"ssh-keygen -s" (with quotes).
What they do
Sign host keys ...

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