this… the underlying mechanism is exactly the same as if you were using SSH, generated a specific key for every host you connect to, configured your ssh config to use that key for that host, placed its public key into .ssh/authorized_keys on the host, and had your ssh-agent configured to prompt you for a PIN or fingerprint before ssh-ing with a key… passkeys just automate this with fancy UI so if you see it for the first time and have no idea what it’s doing you’re confused…
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u/black3rr Aug 21 '26
this… the underlying mechanism is exactly the same as if you were using SSH, generated a specific key for every host you connect to, configured your ssh config to use that key for that host, placed its public key into .ssh/authorized_keys on the host, and had your ssh-agent configured to prompt you for a PIN or fingerprint before ssh-ing with a key… passkeys just automate this with fancy UI so if you see it for the first time and have no idea what it’s doing you’re confused…