How do I delete ALL SSH known hosts?

Question

I've managed many VPSs before and I want to delete these keys.

score 14 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 01 '17 at 21:59

First of all you should remember to verify ssh key finger prints when connecting to a remote computer for the first time, to avoid MITM attacks.

Having said that, first making a backup, and then removing all previous ssh known hosts is a matter of doing this on your local computer :

cp -av ~/.ssh/known_hosts ~/.ssh/known_hosts-old
rm ~/.ssh/known_hosts

The known_hosts file will be created again after you completely initiated the first new ssh session.

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