Quick ssh key authentication steps
I find myself always having to search for the steps to do key authentication for ssh. This post is to be a personal quick reminder of the required steps. See link here for a more detailed walk through.
-
Generate private/public key pair on the local computer.
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
The 4096 is just for a longer key for security reasons. By default, this stores the keys at
~/.ssh
in the filesid_rsa
andid_rsa.pub
. -
Transfer the public key to the remote computer that you are attempting to ssh into.
ssh-copy-id user@host
You’ll need to enter in the user’s password at this step. If all goes according to plan, at this point, you should be able to do
ssh user@host
and not enter in a password. -
Give the hostname/IP address an alias so that it is easier to remember.
You can alias the IP address for ssh using the
~/.ssh/config
file. For example, to ssh into the server that hosts my psychrometric chart page, I have the following lines (not the actual IP address).
Host psy
User root
Hostname 192.168.0.0
With those lines added to the ~/.ssh/config
file, I can now use the command
ssh psy
and I’m in.