Question

WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED

Posted October 15, 2014 531.4k views

I’ve got this message below when trying to connect via SSH.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@    WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!     @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that a host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is
51:82:00:1c:7e:6f:ac:ac:de:f1:53:08:1c:7d:55:68.
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /Users/isaacalves/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending RSA key in /Users/isaacalves/.ssh/known_hosts:12
RSA host key for 104.131.16.158 has changed and you have requested strict checking.
Host key verification failed.

I had overwritten my previous key in my computer and used it with a new droplet (not the one I tried to connect when getting this message. That one actually asks for a password I have not received via e-mail)

Thinking that this message was probably related to that, I updated my SSH key in Digital Ocean with that new one from my computer again. But the message continued to show when trying to login in via ssh.

Is that normal?

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isaacalves
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isaacalves
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10 answers
ramonveloso March 25, 2016

Very thanks

resolved for me is 

ssh-keygen -R "you server hostname or ip"
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kkrupadevi November 20, 2017

I also got the same issue then i tried below commands, issue resolved.

cd ~/.ssh/
ls
If you run ls you will find some list it looks like
idrsa idrsa.pub knownhosts knownhosts.old

then remove knownhosts and also knownhosts.old by running below commands
rm -v knownhosts
rm -v knownhosts.old

Now try to login into your IP

ssh root@Ip address

Issue resolved :)

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vladkras November 11, 2016

cool, but I’ve spent a couple of minutes figuring out what’s “you server”. Actually it’s not your server ip but remote host name or ip as shown in known_hosts on line mentioned in error

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feliphequeiroz November 30, 2016

Thanks!

ssh-keygen -R "you server hostname or ip"
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vijay777pawar March 15, 2018

Here is the simplest solution

ssh-keygen -R <host>
For example,

ssh-keygen -R 192.168.3.10

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akshita March 22, 2018

Thanks! It was a great help

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isaacalves October 15, 2014

thank you.

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hooboy March 11, 2015
[deleted]
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10corp October 20, 2015

It is not necessary to delete the entire known_hosts file, just the offending line in that file. For example if you have 3 server as follows.

vi +2 .ssh/known_hosts

Now go to line # 2, type the following command

:2

Now delete line with dd and exit:

dd
:wq
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ankyjk December 4, 2019

Thanks for the solution, It helped.

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hardiantojr29 July 15, 2020

Thanks for the solution, it’s worked

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