What's the difference between id_rsa.pub and id_dsa.pub?

encryption ssh rsa public-key-encryption dsa
Andrew picture Andrew · May 12, 2010 · Viewed 71.6k times · Source

Is one more secure than the other?

Answer

Mike Pelley picture Mike Pelley · May 12, 2010

id_rsa.pub and id_dsa.pub are the public keys for id_rsa and id_dsa.

If you are asking in relation to SSH, id_rsa is an RSA key and can be used with the SSH protocol 1 or 2, whereas id_dsa is a DSA key and can only be used with SSH protocol 2. Both are very secure, but DSA does seem to be the standard these days (assuming all your clients/servers support SSH 2).

Update: Since this was written DSA has been shown to be insecure. More information available in the answer below.

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