Cisco 9300 - how to import a SSH private key?

[bakysengs]

I am planning to enable archiving on a Cisco 9300 so that it automatically backups up the config to a SCP/SSH server whenever some does a 'write memory'.

Due to my company's internal security policy, I have to use key based authentication rather than password based authentication when connecting to the SCP/SSH server. The server administrator has provided me the private key however I cannot find any documentation on how to import the private key onto the switch.

Do Cisco switches support key based authentication when connecting to a SCP/SSH server?

Any help or guidance would be appreciated.

[Karsten Iwen]

I have no idea if IOS support RSA authentication as a client, but you are trying it the wrong way. If the Catalyst has to log into the server, you need to export the public key of the Catalyst and place that into the autorized_hosts file on the server. You don't need the servers private key for that.