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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers How do I set the public keys up correctly for a migration from an HP-UNIX server to I Post 302220044 by Smiling Dragon on Wednesday 30th of July 2008 07:28:05 PM
Old 07-30-2008
Java

For some background on public/provate key pairs:
Public-key cryptography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Each ssh server (ie sshd) should have it's own unique host key pairs (ie, nothing to do with the user or your home dir). These verify that the server you are connecting to is who it says it is (via your known_hosts file) and handles the actual data encryption.

Then, each user of ssh can generate a key pair (or many if they wish) if they want to identify themselves via these keys. Whatever you do, don't overwrite one user's generated keys with another just to get a login to work.
To enable passwordless authentication via keys, copy the public key of the source into the authorized_keys file of the destination.

Example:
USER1 on HOSTA wants to be able to log in as USER2 on HOSTB.
  1. Log into HOSTA as USER1
  2. Generate a key pair for USER1
  3. Take a copy of the _public_ key from the pair you just made
  4. Log in to HOSTB as USER2
  5. Create (or edit) the authorized_keys file (this filename is defined in the sshd configuration on HOSTB)
  6. Add your public key for USER1 from HOSTA to the authorized_keys file belonging to USER2 on HOSTB
  7. Most key generators create a short comment at the end of the public key, make sure this also gets added to your authorized_keys file (ie just add the whole block) as this makes it easier to manage things if you get a lot of keys. You can make something up in this field if you want to help you track them
  8. OPTIONAL: Prepend the key in your authorized_keys file with from="<ip address>" if you want to increase the security by also validating the user by the IP they come from (both must be correct before it will allow a login)
 

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SSH-COPY-ID(1)						      General Commands Manual						    SSH-COPY-ID(1)

NAME
ssh-copy-id - install your public key in a remote machine's authorized_keys SYNOPSIS
ssh-copy-id [-i [identity_file]] [user@]machine DESCRIPTION
ssh-copy-id is a script that uses ssh to log into a remote machine and append the indicated identity file to that machine's ~/.ssh/autho- rized_keys file. If the -i option is given then the identity file (defaults to ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub) is used, regardless of whether there are any keys in your ssh-agent. Otherwise, if this: ssh-add -L provides any output, it uses that in preference to the identity file. If the -i option is used, or the ssh-add produced no output, then it uses the contents of the identity file. Once it has one or more fin- gerprints (by whatever means) it uses ssh to append them to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the remote machine (creating the file, and directory, if necessary.) NOTES
This program does not modify the permissions of any pre-existing files or directories. Therefore, if the remote sshd has StrictModes set in its configuration, then the user's home, ~/.ssh folder, and ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file may need to have group writability disabled manu- ally, e.g. via chmod go-w ~ ~/.ssh ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the remote machine. SEE ALSO
ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), sshd(8) OpenSSH 14 November 1999 SSH-COPY-ID(1)
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