SHA256 ssh fingerprint given by the client but only md5 fingerprint known for server

Previously the fingerprint was given as a hexed md5 hash. Starting with OpenSSH 6.8 the fingerprint is now displayed as base64 SHA256 (by default). You can't compare these directly.

They also added a new configuration option FingerprintHash. You can put

FingerprintHash md5

in your ~/.ssh/config to revert to the old (less secure) default or just use this option for single use:

ssh -o FingerprintHash=md5 example.org

which would give the fingerprint as

MD5:f6:fc:1c:03:17:5f:67:4f:1f:0b:50:5a:9f:f9:30:e5

Hopefully server admins provide both types of fingerprints in the near future.

EDIT:

As given in the Arch Linux forums, there is also a third option:

Host example.org
    FingerprintHash md5

EDIT:

You can generate the hash of an arbitrary key as given on the OpenSSH Cookbook:

Retrieve the key:

  • download the key with ssh-keyscan example.org > key.pub
  • or: find the keys on the server in /etc/ssh

Generate the hash:

  • make sure you have only one line/type, so either delete all others in key.pub or run ssh-keyscan -t rsa example.org > key.pub
  • ssh-keygen -l -f key.pub (default hash, depending on OpenSSH version)
  • ssh-keygen -l -f key.pub -E md5 (md5 on current OpenSSH)
  • awk '{print $2}' ssh_host_rsa_key.pub | base64 -d | sha256sum -b | awk '{print $1}' | xxd -r -p | base64 (sha256 on old OpenSSH)
  • (You might need to start the line with awk '{print $3}' for newer versions of ssh-keyscan because the format changed)

Just created small bash script which will print table with fingerprints for all key ciphers allowed on server (according to /etc/ssh/sshd_config) in both SSH-256 and MD5 algo. Here is an example output:

 +---------+---------+-----------------------------------------------------+
 | Cipher  | Algo    | Fingerprint                                         |
 +---------+---------+-----------------------------------------------------+
 | RSA     | MD5     | MD5:15:66:80:fd:79:d8:c0:92:e8:39:4a:bc:4e:c4:00:15 |
 | RSA     | SHA-256 | SHA256:G+rKuLGk+8Z1oxUV3cox0baNsH0qGQWm/saWPr4qZMM  |
 +---------+---------+-----------------------------------------------------+
 | ECDSA   | MD5     | MD5:f5:90:5c:03:2e:38:1b:c9:86:bd:86:47:5d:22:79:17 |
 | ECDSA   | SHA-256 | SHA256:GGmuOzsG4EGeRV9KD1WK7tRf3nIc40k/5jRgbTZDpTo  |
 +---------+---------+-----------------------------------------------------+
 | ED25519 | MD5     | MD5:d1:5a:04:56:37:f4:75:19:22:e6:e5:d7:41:fd:79:fa |
 | ED25519 | SHA-256 | SHA256:QVdqYeVzvsP4n5yjuN3D2fu8hDhskOxQCQAV5f9QK7w  |
 +---------+---------+-----------------------------------------------------+

 +---[RSA 2048]----+ +---[RSA 2048]----+ +---[ECDSA 256]---+ +---[ECDSA 256]---+ +--[ED25519 256]--+ +--[ED25519 256]--+
 |.oE.   +.++      | |        .o+=     | |      ... Eoo    | |  .. o.o..      .| |        ooo++o.+*| |   .o++o. +oo    |
 |  .   o +oo.     | |        .o= =    | |     +.=.=.o .   | | . .o *..      ..| |       . oo.+o.o=| |      ...o.+     |
 |   + . . o.=     | |       ... X +   | |    . X.o.*      | |o o  ++o      .. | |        . o. ...+| |       ..oo.o .  |
 |    = +  .+ o    | |      ..  = + o  | |     + = o o     | |.+  .o.o     .o  | |         +    ..o| |        =oo .+   |
 |   o o .S  .     | |     . .S  o o   | |    . = S   .    | |...  oo.S  .E* * | |        S      ..| |       .SO .  .  |
 |    +            | |    . E. =o..    | |     o           | | .. o.  . o *.O o| |              .  | |        o B .o.. |
 |   o             | | .o. *.o. *.     | |                 | |   ...   . o * * | |               . | |         E *..=.o|
 |    .            | | oo=...  +.      | |                 | |    +.      o + o| |                E| |          . +.+B+|
 |                 | |o+=.o....o+o     | |                 | |   .o+         . | |                 | |           o.ooOX|
 +------[MD5]------+ +----[SHA256]-----+ +------[MD5]------+ +----[SHA256]-----+ +------[MD5]------+ +----[SHA256]-----+

Script will run also on servers with SSH version below 6.8 (before -E md5 option was added).

Edit: Updated versions for even more recent versions of SSH which switched default ciphers now with ASCII images support.

#!/bin/bash
# server_ssh_fingerprints
#
# Version 0.2
#
# 2016 Kepi <[email protected]
# MIT License
#
# Print fingerprint matrix for all allowed Host Keys
# with all allowed ciphers and MD5 and SHA-256 algos
#
# Changelog:
#
# 2018-03-11 (0.2):
# - Support for newer versions of OpenSSH
# - Added visual keys for all algos too - only in recent OpenSSH versions

# standard sshd config path
SSHD_CONFIG=/etc/ssh/sshd_config

# helper functions
function tablize {
    awk '{printf(" | %-7s | %-7s | %-51s |\n", $1, $2, $3)}'
}
LINE=" +---------+---------+-----------------------------------------------------+"

# header
echo "$LINE"
echo "Cipher" "Algo" "Fingerprint" | tablize
echo "$LINE"

declare -A ALGOS
declare -a ASCII

# fingerprints
while read -r host_key; do
    cipher=$(echo "$host_key" | sed -r 's/^.*ssh_host_([^_]+)_key\.pub$/\1/'| tr 'a-z' 'A-Z')
    if [[ -f "$host_key" ]]; then
        if ssh-keygen -E md5 -l -f "$host_key" &>/dev/null; then
        IFS=$'\n'

        for algo in md5 sha256; do
            n=0
            for line in $(ssh-keygen -E $algo -lv -f "$host_key"); do
                n=$(( n + 1))
                if [[ $n -eq 1 ]]; then
                    ALGOS[$algo]=$(echo "$line" | awk '{print $2}')
                else
                    ASCII[$n]="${ASCII[$n]} ${line}"
                fi
            done
        done
        else
            ALGOS[md5]=$(ssh-keygen -l -f "$host_key" | awk '{print $2}')
            ALGOS[sha256]=$(awk '{print $2}' "$host_key" | base64 -d | sha256sum -b | awk '{print $1}' | xxd -r -p | base64)
        fi

        echo "$cipher" MD5 "${ALGOS[md5]}" | tablize
        echo "$cipher" SHA-256 "${ALGOS[sha256]}" | tablize
        echo "$LINE"
    fi
 done < <(awk '/^HostKey/ {sub(/^HostKey\s+/,"");print $0".pub"};' $SSHD_CONFIG)

echo
for line in "${ASCII[@]}"; do
    echo "$line"
done

This is just pretty print using information from JonnyJD's answer. Thanks.


it turns out ssh-keygen (sometime after version 6.6; presumably 6.8) has a -E md5 option which will cause it to print out the fingerprint as an md5 fingerprint. So, if you can independently grab the public key file of the server, you can feed it to ssh-keygen -E md5 -l -f ssh_host_rsa_key.pub and get your familiar fingerprint.

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