sshkeygen

Brute-force searching ED25519 SSH key pairs that have public key containing desired suffixes.

Usage

% make

% read -s PASSPHRASE; export PASSPHRASE
(enter a passphrase to protect the private key, optional)

% ./sshkeygen [-i] [-n numWorkers] <suffix>...

Options:

• -i: Ignore case when comparing the suffix
• -n numWorkers: Number of workers to utilize (default 1)

Example usage

# Take multiple suffixes, fully utilize 2 cores, you will see 200% CPU usage
./sshkeygen -n 2 /matt /Matt

# Fully utilize all cores, ignore case when comparing the suffixes
./sshkeygen -n $(nproc) -i /matt ymattw

To stop the program, press Ctrl+C.

Performance

On an Apple M1 Pro machine, running with 4 workers can search ~207K key pairs per second.

On a decent VPS with 4 vCore 8G memory, running with 2 workers can search ~90K key pairs per second.

So depending on your hardware -

• Searching a 3-letter suffix such as /me only takes a few seconds.
• Searching a 4-letter suffix such as /git takes a few minutes.
• Longer suffix might take a from a few hours up to a whole night.

As a real example, with 4 workers on Appe M1 Pro, it took me about only 1 hour to find this cool key pair (public key).