Purpose of Publickey file

[ponraj]

Hello All,

I'm using OpenSSH 4.2p1 and I have a question regarding the usage of host 
keys in OpenSSH. The host keys (both private and public) are stored in etc 
directory. But when sshd loads the key, it reads only private key and 
generates the public key from it. Is there any reason for having the public 
host key along with the private key in the etc directory?

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M.P