Moving Ubuntu server without regenerating SSH thumbprint

ollietrex

I have a Ubuntu 14.04 server hosted in Azure which I used as an SFTP (FTP over SSH) for a large number of clients and I want to move it to @dediserve but I don't want to regenerate the SSH thumbprint else I will have to inform all of our clients to check there batch tasks to re confirm the new key.

Is there a way to copy an Ubuntu 14.04 server from one provider to another without regenerating the SSH thumbprint?

Falzo

most likely save and restore the /etc/ssh/ssh_host_* files from the old to the new server?

that said rsyncing the whole content of a server to the new VM might work as intended...

Damian

Top result in Google: http://serverfault.com/questions/250887/process-to-move-ssh-server-keys-to-new-server

1) If your sshd config files are stored under /etc/ssh/, you'll need to copy all of those. You'll find the sshd config there, as well as the host-keypair.

Make sure you correctly copy the permissions too! The sshd will simply ignore keys that are not properly protected. (Good as well, as an unprotected private key is a very bad idea.)

Also:

I forgot to add that your users may get a warning when they connect to the new host that they already have a host in their known_hosts file which matches the key they are authenticating against. This means they will have to remove the entry in their known hosts file. You can't get around this.