How do I verify/check/test/validate my SSH passphrase?

Question

I think I forgot the passphrase for my SSH key, but I have a hunch what it might be. How do I check if I\'m right?

Answer 1

If your passphrase is to unlock your SSH key and you don't have ssh-agent, but do have sshd (the SSH daemon) installed on your machine, do:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys;
ssh localhost -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Where ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub is the public key, and ~/.ssh/id_rsa is the private key.