Hi,

I am connecting via SFTP to a remote Server. My problem is on trying to LOGin, I am asked for a password. I need to make this process automatic such that I can login without being prompted for a password.

I can achieve this if the remote server has a simple FTP server and not SFTP. How can I achieve this for SFTP ???

I have heard about some solution using KERBEROS but it appears way too complicated and even our System and Network Admins dont have any idea on how to use it..

Appreciate any suggestions,

TIA,
sg

You can use key-based authentication to login without using a password. You can do this very easily. Search for "ssh key based authentication" or something similar on google.

Hi,

Thanks for the info. Our client unix machine has OpenSSH running on it. Using the tool ssh-keygen, I did generate a public and private key, inserted the Public key in the remote machine $home/.ssh dir but still I am being asked for a password.

I have a doubt here and appreciate any clarification:

I have been provided with an user and password to login via SFTP to the remote machine. How do I tie this user and password to the Public/ Private Keys generated in the client machine ????
If I dont tie them together, how does the remote machine permit access to it !!?

Thnx,
Sands

You don't need the username and password in that case. The server allows you to log in through another authentication mechanism(public key).

When you copied the public key to the destination server, did you put it in the file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys? Whats the permissions of the file? Of the .ssh directory?

The permissions on your .ssh directory and the files below that should be like these:
# ls -ld .ssh
drwx------ 2 xxxx xxxx 96 xxxxx .ssh

# cd .ssh
# ls -l
total 64
-rw------- 1 xxxx xxxx 887 xxxxx id_rsa
-rw------- 1 xxxx xxxx 1024 xxxxx prng_seed

As you can see, only the owner should have read/write permissions on the directory and the files. In fact, ssh wont work if you are more permissive than this.

hi guys, thanks for the info. I have another doubt now !

Whats with this authorized_keys file ?? is it a file or a directory under .ssh ??

I dumped the public key generated by my client into the .ssh dir of the remote server.

Please clarify something, authorized_keys is generated by whom and how do I insert the Public key into this file ? do a simple cat id_rsa.pub > authorized_keys ??

thnx a lot,
sg