If you are using SSH key-based authentication you should be encrypting your private key. This ensures that if someone breaks into your server and steals your keys, they won’t be able to utilize them to access other systems. If your private key isn’t encrypted you can use the ssh-keygen utilities “-p” option to do so:
$ ssh-keygen -p -f id_dsa
Enter old passphrase:
Key has comment 'id_dsa'
Enter new passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved with the new passphrase.
This option can be used to change the password used to encrypt a private key, and to add a password to an existing private key. Viva la OpenSSH!