'Too many authentication failures' nuisance

[Lars Noodén]

On 8/10/24 17:13, Chris Green wrote:
> I have several ssh keys in the ~/.ssh directory of my desktop machine.
> As a result whenever I try to connect to a system which uses password
> authentication I get the "Too many authentication failures" error.
>
> Yes, I know I can get round this by setting PreferredAuthentications
> but this is rather a nuisance to have to do individually for all
> systems that use password authentication.  It also means that I have
> to do it for a 'casual' ssh access to a system which I'm unlikely to
> access more than once.
>
> Is there any way around this problem?

You can set IdentitiesOnly to apply to all hosts using ssh_config(5)  Or
you can be trickier in the configuration, but it is the IdentitiesOnly
option which you need set to 'yes'.

Put it and any other general rules at the end of the config file because
the configration operates on a first-match basis.

/Lars