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The issue I am having is ssh related, where my keys seem to consistently disappear from the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file. The public keys that I need to use have been added to the google developer console, and if I restart my vm, the authorized keys file is present, with some of the ssh keys present (some don't appear). However, it will inevitably disappear at some point, and the only way to restore it that I have found is to manually copy and paste the keys back in to a new authorized_keys file, or to restart the vm.

I checked a few other threads for solutions, but I am either misunderstanding, or they aren't the solution I am looking for: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65141387/authorized-keys-getting-deleted-from-google-cloud-vm#:~:text=The%20SSH%20keys%20in%20the%20metadata%20are%20redeployed,%28add%20it%20to%20the%20compute%20engine%20metadata%5D%20%28https%3A%2F%2Fcloud.google.com%2Fcompute%2Fdocs%2Finstances%2Fadding-removing-ssh-keys%29

I have checked permissions of .ssh as well as .ssh/authorized keys, but they are set correctly. I am not sure where I should aim my efforts in order to fix this, if anybody has any suggestions I'd appreciate it, thanks.

neutron02
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    This is due to the Google Daemons which are responsible for managing user accounts and SSH public keys using the Metadata server. Due to these daemons, user accounts and SSH keys are synced with the Metadata server and the VM instance. The recommended method to manage SSH keys is by using Metadata server. You can use instance metadata to add SSH keys which only will be applied to that instance and will not be propagated to all the instances in the project. You can check the [document](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/access-overview) for more information. – Kiran Kotturi Aug 18 '23 at 10:39

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