RESOLVE: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!

This post was published long ago, when I was an amateur blogger. The links might be outdated and content may not be useful anymore. Please read this content keeping its age in mind.

Recently I re-installed my MediaTemple Ve Server. I successfully installed CentOS 5 on MediaTemple Ve server. After installation I tried to connect to server through SSH. Unfortunately got a message saying WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!  It looked something like below:

$ ssh user@420.420.420.420

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@    WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!     @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that the RSA host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is
1e:e3:c4:0a:6a:78:e6:17:cc:f2:ba:ca:c7:39:4b:aa.
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /Users/sandeephegde/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending key in /Users/sandeephegde/.ssh/known_hosts:1
RSA host key for 420.420.420.420 has changed and you have requested strict checking.
Host key verification failed.

Looked around to resolve the issue. Got to know that the issue was due to the old RSA key stored in the system. The solution to resolve the issue was to add the correct key. Easiest way is to remove all the old RSA keys from your computer. To do this simply go to your terminal and type as below:

$ open .ssh

This will result in opeing a windows as in screenshot:

All that you have to do is delete the file “know_hosts” i.e simply move it to trash. Thats all you have got rid of REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!

Now you can connect to you server through SSH normally. If you are still facing any difiulities leave a comment below.