Ask HN: SSH – authorized_keys comment field format (best practices)?

    Public keys consist of the following space-separated fields:

        options keytype base64-encoded-key comment
   
    The options field is optional
    The comment field is not used for anything (but may be convenient for the user to identify the key)

    ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIN5EYh69EeIDiVYxgy6O4fUWoxiT4cRxb8JkLdikE27a user@host

    ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIN5EYh69EeIDiVYxgy6O4fUWoxiT4cRxb8JkLdikE27a [email protected]

    ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIN5EYh69EeIDiVYxgy6O4fUWoxiT4cRxb8JkLdikE27a o:user1@host1|e:[email protected]|p:manage-vhosts|t:2024-02-21
    ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAICebzmkN9HFcnTfcugV+8sAC1nI9itIL0uriy8lmTc7L o:user2@host2|p:manage-users

    awk '$NF ~ /^.:/ {print $NF}' ~/.ssh/authorized_keys | tr '|' '\n' | awk -F':' '/^o:/ {print "origin="$2}'
    awk '$NF ~ /^.:/ {print $NF}' ~/.ssh/authorized_keys | tr '|' '\n' | awk -F':' '/^e:/ {print "email="$2}'
    awk '$NF ~ /^.:/ {print $NF}' ~/.ssh/authorized_keys | tr '|' '\n' | awk -F':' '/^p:/ {print "purpose="$2}'
    awk '$NF ~ /^.:/ {print $NF}' ~/.ssh/authorized_keys | tr '|' '\n' | awk -F':' '/^t:/ {print "timestamp="$2}'

    origin=user1@host1
    origin=user2@host2
    [email protected]
    purpose=manage-vhosts
    purpose=manage-users
    timestamp=2024-02-21