When should teams adopt SSH best practices, and when should they avoid it?

DevOps teams should adopt SSH best practices when they are managing any systems that require secure access, specifically in environments involving sensitive data, production servers, or deployment pipelines. Utilizing SSH keys for authentication rather than passwords ensures an additional layer of security and enables more efficient management of access permissions.

However, teams should avoid excessive reliance on SSH in environments where simpler authentication methods may be sufficient. For example, for internal development systems where exposure to the public internet is limited, simpler methods may reduce complexity without compromising security.

        // Example of SSH key generation
        ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"
        // Copying public key to the server
        ssh-copy-id user@hostname