SSH Configuration
When starting at a new client you generally have to remember passwords on a bunch of *nix machines – dev, uat, prod and various others. I usually securely store those passwords somewhere and ideally never have to look them up again. Instead, I distribute my public key to the appropriate servers so that I am never actually prompted for a password.
Create the ssh keys
If you don’t already have a private and public key created, now is the time to create one. On your desktop:
$ ssh-keygen
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/cygdrive/c/users/james/.ssh/id_rsa): [Enter]
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): [Enter a passphrase]
Enter same passphrase again: [Enter a passphrase]
Your identification has been saved in /id_rsa_new_crap.
Your public key has been saved in /id_rsa_new_crap.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:<Some Value>james@localhost
The key's randomart image is:
+---[RSA 2048]----+
| oo+.+E. |
| O = ... |
| + %oo +. |
| .= O+..o |
| . .* So . |
| . .=.=oo . |
| . .....+o. |
|oo. ... |
|..o+o.. |
+----[SHA256]-----+
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsaPublish your public key to the relevant servers.
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub <user>@<remote-host>### Attempt login to those relevant servers.
ssh <user>@<remote-host>Create Aliases (optional)
Next I add aliases to my bash profile so that I don’t even have to remember the full server names.
alias sshServer='xtitle '\''<server>'\''; ssh <user>@<remote-host>'
Written on March 17, 2015