CURLOPT_SSH_HOST_PUBLIC_KEY_SHA256(3)

CURLOPT_SSH_HOST_PUBLIC_KEY_SHA2563

Sha256 hash of ssh server public key

Usage

#include <curl/curl.h>
CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_SSH_HOST_PUBLIC_KEY_SHA256,
                          char *sha256);

Overview

Pass a char pointer pointing to a string containing a Base64-encoded SHA256 hash of the remote host's public key. The transfer fails if the given hash does not match the hash the remote host provides.

The application does not have to keep the string around after setting this option.

Using this option multiple times makes the last set string override the previous ones. Set it to NULL to disable its use again.

This option is used to verify a new connection only. The SHA256 hash check is performed when libcurl establishes a new SSH connection; once that connection has been successfully verified, it is deemed vetted and may be reused without performing the SHA256 (or any other host key) verification again, even if you subsequently change SSH verification-related options. When this SHA256-based verification is enabled for a new connection, libcurl does not additionally consult CURLOPT_SSH_KNOWNHOSTS(3) or SSH host key callbacks (including CURLOPT_SSH_HOST_PUBLIC_KEY_MD5(3)) for that connection, so you should not expect multiple host verification methods to be applied to the same new connection.

Default

NULL

Protocols

This functionality affects scp and sftp

Examples

int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    CURLcode result;
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "sftp://example.com/file");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_SSH_HOST_PUBLIC_KEY_SHA256,
                     "NDVkMTQxMGQ1ODdmMjQ3MjczYjAyOTY5MmRkMjVmNDQ=");
    result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
}

Return value

curl_easy_setopt(3) returns a CURLcode indicating success or error.

CURLE_OK (0) means everything was OK, non-zero means an error occurred, see libcurl-errors(3).

Releases

3 releases since Debian 12 (Bookworm); the text changed 2 times.

  1. 12
  2. 13
  3. Arch

Availability

Added in curl 7.80.0

From curl 8.23.0-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.