I used to have a public and private rsa key in my ~/.ssh directory which I needed to connect to one particular ssh server for work. Eventually, I no longer needed to connect to that cluster, so I did rm -rf in my ~/.ssh directory (big mistake apparently, I should've known!).

Now, any time I try using ssh to connect to ANY servers I've connected to in the past, I can't.. The shh command in the terminal just freezes forever.

I can connect to new ssh servers (ip addresses I've never connected to before) without a problem.

Any help please?

thank you

The lack of a private key should not lead to a hang. ssh should fall back to password authentication, and if the remote system doesn't offer this option, ssh should print an error message and stop.

Add verbosity to the command to see at what point it hangs:
EDIT: Rather than troubleshooting the problem, is it an option to generate a new keypair and ask somebody else to install the public key on the remote servers?
Also, you may have a backup somewhere.

Thank you the reply,

The remote server doesn't exist any more (hence why I wiped the key). The problem is I now can't log into ANYTHING that I logged into while I had the key. This includes machines where I never need the key in the first place. New servers are not a problem. I don't have a backup

When using ssh -vvv I get the following (where I've replaced the ip with x's)

ssh -vvv xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
OpenSSH_7.6p1 Ubuntu-4ubuntu0.3, OpenSSL 1.0.2n 7 Dec 2017
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 19: Applying options for *
debug2: resolving "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" port 22
debug2: ssh_connect_direct: needpriv 0
debug1: Connecting to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] port 22.

If it hangs there, my guess is that the remote party has no SSH server running or, more likely, that there is no connectivity to the remote party at all. In any case, you don't even get a connection established. This has nothing to do with your keys; keys come into play when there is a connection.

To check IP connectivity, you can try ping. Be aware that the other side might by up and running but ignoring pings; a failed ping is not much of a proof.

Can you talk to whoever is responsible for running those servers? The problem is at their end, I would say.

I can connect to those servers using a different machine no problem. I don't think the problem is on their end. Some of the machines that I'm trying to connect to are in fact my own machines. They have ssh running, and I can connect to them using different machines.

If they are your own machines, run sshd with the debug option to see how the connection attempts look on the server.

Was there a config file also?
Is the directory now completely empty?

Maybe the wrong port?
Some people like to set up different ports than the default 22 for ssh.