Public and Private Keys over SSH
December 16, 2006 – 3:03 pmI found a very good explanation of how to set up public key authentication over ssh. I’m always looking for it when I need it, and it always takes forever.
http://www.petefreitag.com/item/532.cfm
You can also use ssh-copy-id, I’m not sure what the specifics are behind it, but it seems to be available occasionally (Fedora 6) and not in other places (OS X 10.4.8).
2 Responses to “Public and Private Keys over SSH”
Just out of curosity are you using this for automated tasks? Because it seems like it could potentially be pretty insecure depending on how you’re setting this up. If you set this up without a passphrase (which is typically done if you are doing automated tasks) then if the client machine is compromised the server will be compromised.
By Scott Gale on Dec 24, 2006
Yes. If my laptop is stolen, and my account is broken into, then yes, my server can also be accessed, if I don’t create a new pair of keys on it first. My passwords are still secure, however.
By jon on Jan 3, 2007