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I have a public key in a server(host) that I want to transfer to another server(target).

The host server has a bunch of keys in .ssh/ folder, i want to copy just one of them to the target server (it's not id_rsa.pub, so lets call mykey.rsa.pub).

Also, the target server has the host server key (lets call hostkey.rsa.pub) in .ssh/authorized_keys, for passwordless ssh.

Is it possible to do something like this?

ssh-copy-id mykey.rsa.pub -i hostkey.rsa.pub user@target

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2 Answers 2

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You can pass ssh options with -o:

ssh-copy-id -i mykey.rsa.pub -o "IdentityFile hostkey.rsa" user@target
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    Worked for me but I had to add -f before -i. Commented Mar 21, 2020 at 14:40
  • it really makes no sense that it tries to copy every single key by default. Commented Jul 1, 2021 at 13:40
  • with -f too. it says Number of key(s) added: 2, but i check server it really add 1 (what I expect) Commented Jun 21, 2024 at 7:34
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Yes, it is possible something like

ssh-copy-id -f -i hostkey.rsa.pub user@target

with latest version of ssh-copy-id. If you have some older, it might or might not work (with RHEL7 and older Fedora with SSH_COPY_ID_LEGACY=1 environment variable)

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    Also make sure the -i option is BEFORE user@target. -f might not be needed. Commented Sep 22, 2017 at 13:05
  • I think the OP wants to copy mykey.rsa.pub. They want to use hostkey.rsa.pub for the underlying ssh connection during the copy.... Commented Sep 13, 2022 at 11:31

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