How to do SSH key authentication

Published: 23-Jan-2011 (21:30); Viewed: 3050; Difficulty: 1 out of 10

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RSA key-based authentication is one of the simplest and most secure way to login from Unix computer to remote Unix based computer. You need to enter secret pass-phrase only once, and then you can login (ssh), copy (scp) or synchronize files (rsync) without entering password or secret pass-phrase.

step-by-step instructions

  1. Create set of RSA keys which will be used for authentication We recommend to use very strong security level:

    ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096


  2. Answer by default to all questions, but please enter very long and secure pass-phrase, which you should remember very well.
    Generating public/private rsa key pair will be as follow:

    Enter file in which to save the key (/home/yourname/.ssh/id_rsa):
    Enter pass-phrase (empty for no pass-phrase): <-here should be very long phrase
    Enter same pass-phrase again:
    Your identification has been saved in /home/yourname/.ssh/id_rsa.
    Your public key has been saved in /home/yourname/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.



  3. Transfer your keys to hosts, which you will need to use in future.

    ssh-copy-id <username>@<host>

    Where <username> - user name on remote Unix system, <host> - address of the remote Unix system.



tips and tricks

  • Select very strong pass-phrase.
  • If you lost your pass-phrase, you can create new one and reset all authentication keys.
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by: John Farnon
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tags: internet security; linux; ssh

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