SSH provides authentication methods for both the server (host) and the client (user). It should be obvious why the server must authenticate the client. The server wants to only provide access to authorized users. Otherwise, anyone could take over the server.
However, the client also needs to authenticate the server. If the client fails to authenticate the server properly, then the client could be tricked into sending its password to an impostor!
In SSH, servers are authenticated using public key encryption. Conceptually, this is very similar to how HTTPS provides server authentication. However, SSH doesn't typically rely on certificate authorities. Instead, when using SSH, most clients simply keep a list of the public keys (or hashes of the public keys) that they trust. How the clients obtain this list in the first place varies. Generally, if a client connects...
