SSH Passkey

Here is a nifty trick to pair an ssh client and server. Using this technique, you'll be able to SSH from one computer to another without a password.

Always use common sense when by passing authentications schemes. This particular technique removes the use of a password to access a server. Meaning if someone gains access to your client terminal, then they immediately have access to your server terminal.

From Client terminal, create a key.

ssh-keygen -t dsa

This only needs to be done once per client. If you do not wish to enter a password each time you ssh to a server, then simply do not provide a passphrase.

This public part of this key will be stored on your server. When the client terminal connects, the private part of this key will be used to authenicate; this is instead of a simple password.

Use this putkey.sh script (thanks arenasoftware.com) from your client to place the public part of your newly generated key on the server.

sh ./putkey.sh user@host.tld

To remove this from your server, remove the entry from the .ssh directory in your home path.

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