Can I change the filename of my ssh public/private key pair?

I created a public/private key pair:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "[email protected]"

I gave a different key file name than id_rsa since I wanted to create a new separate key from my normal identity.

I gave this key to my hosting provider so that I can login to my server using public key authentication.

I was able to initially login using the key and everything worked.

ssh -i /path/to/key/file [email protected]

I realized I made a spelling error in the key file name and renamed both the public and private key files. Does this affect anything on the server side if the key file has a different name on my client machine?

Solution 1:

The filename has no meaning at all, as long as ssh is told where to find it.

(However, if you have the public key extracted to a separate file, then it should have the same filename + .pub as the main file; e.g. mykey & mykey.pub.)