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User Management

New

Introduced in 0.7.0

ssh-keys:add <name> [/path/to/key]             # Add a new public key by pipe or path
ssh-keys:list                                  # List of all authorized Dokku public ssh keys
ssh-keys:remove <name>                         # Remove SSH public key by name

When pushing to Dokku, ssh key based authorization is the preferred authentication method, for ease of use and increased security.

Users in Dokku are managed via the ~/dokku/.ssh/authorized_keys file. It is highly recommended that you follow the steps below to manage users on a Dokku server.

Info

Users of older versions of Dokku should use the sshcommand binary to manage keys. Please refer to the Dokku documentation for your version for more details.

Usage

Listing SSH Keys

You can use the ssh-keys:list command to show all configured ssh keys. Any key added via the dokku-installer will be associated with the admin key name.

dokku ssh-keys:list

61:21:1f:88:7f:86:d4:3a:68:9f:18:aa:41:4f:bc:3d NAME="admin" SSHCOMMAND_ALLOWED_KEYS="no-agent-forwarding,no-user-rc,no-X11-forwarding,no-port-forwarding"

The output contains the following information:

  • SSH Key Fingerprint.
  • The KEY_NAME.
  • A comma separated list of ssh options under the SSHCOMMAND_ALLOWED_KEYS name.

Adding SSH Keys

You can add your public key to Dokku with the ssh-keys:add command. The output will be the fingerprint of the ssh key:

dokku ssh-keys:add KEY_NAME path/to/id_rsa.pub

b7:76:27:4f:30:90:21:ae:d4:1e:70:20:35:3f:06:d6

KEY_NAME is the username prefer to use to refer to this particular key. Including the word admin in the name will grant the user privileges to add additional keys remotely.

Info

KEY_NAME is a unique name which is used to identify public keys. Attempting to re-use a key name will result in an error. The ssh (git) user is always dokku, as this is the system user that the dokku binary uses to perform all it's actions.

Admin users and root can also add keys remotely:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh dokku@dokku.me ssh-keys:add KEY_NAME

Finally, if you are using the vagrant installation, you can also use the make vagrant-acl-add target to add your public key to Dokku (it will use your host username as the USER):

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | make vagrant-acl-add

Removing SSH Keys

As key names are unique, they can be used to remove a public ssh key.

dokku ssh-keys:remove KEY_NAME

Scoping commands to specific users

Keys are given unique names, which can be used in conjunction with the user-auth plugin trigger to handle command authorization. Please see the documentation on that trigger for more information.