Import SSH key

1. Place the private key in the correct directory

By default, SSH looks for keys in ~/.ssh/

1. Open Terminal and run:

mkdir -p ~/.ssh
chmod 700 ~/.ssh

1. Move your id_rsa and id_rsa.pub files into the ~/.ssh/ directory. For example:

mv /path/to/id_rsa ~/.ssh/
mv /path/to/id_rsa.pub ~/.ssh/

1. Set the correct permissions:

chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
chmod 644 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

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2. Add the key to the SSH agent

macOS uses ssh-agent to manage SSH keys.

If you want the key to be remembered even after restarting, you can use the macOS Keychain:

/usr/bin/ssh-add --apple-use-keychain ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Start the agent and add the key:

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

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3. (Optional) Add host configuration in ~/.ssh/config

To simplify connections to specific servers using your key, you can create or edit the ~/.ssh/config file:

nano ~/.ssh/config

Example entry:

Host service.ourdomain.com
    HostName service.lan.ourdomain.com
    User $USER
    Port 22
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
    UseKeychain yes
    AddKeysToAgent yes