ssh without password

[Jonathan S. Romero]

On the host machine (the one you are connecting to)
--------------------------------------------------
/etc/ssh/sshd_config has a line that describes what the location and
name of the authorized keys files is.  Note that the default is to use a
per-user authorized_keys file in the .ssh subdirectory of their home 
folder.  

Running ssh-keygen -t dsa will create that folder and give you a default
key for that user.  Note that you probably dont need to set a password
on the key, just leave it blank.  This is neccessary if you want to use
that key for cron scripts.

On the guest machine(the one you are connecting from)
------------------------------------------------------
Create the key, if you havent already:
ssh-keygen -t dsa
#Enter no password for the key when asked.  And store in the default
location.
scp .ssh/id_dsa.pub root at hostmachine:/root/
ssh root at hostmachine
#now we're on the host machine
cat id_dsa.pub >> .ssh/authorized_keys
chown root:root .ssh/authorized_keys
chmod 644 .ssh/authorized_keys
exit

#Now we're back on the guest machine, do an ssh login with
#verbose logging enabled.  This will tell you if the security step 
#succeeds.
ssh -v root at hostnmachine

If you still have problems, watch the ssh log on the host machine. 
#on the host machine
tail -f /var/log/auth.log

Enjoy!


On Sat, 2005-10-15 at 00:24 +0530, shamsheer yousaf wrote:
> Try renaming the file on the server to authorized_keys2 .
> Also another problem could be the permissions of the file
> authorized_keys2 . It should ideally have the permission bits set to
> 0644 .........maybe that could be the problem ...
> 
> Regards
> Shamsheer
> 
> On 10/14/05, Reinhard Tartler <siretart at gmail.com> wrote:
>         On 10/14/05, David <david at kenpro.com.au> wrote:
>         > I'm trying to use dsa key pairs so that I can ssh in a cron
>         script without
>         > passwords. I've generated the key pair, then copied the
>         public key to the 
>         > server. Client is Hoary, and server is Debian Sarge.
>         >
>         > When I ssh, I get asked for a password. Is there some step
>         I'm missing? Is
>         > there something in the sshd_config or ssh_config that needs
>         fixing? 
>         
>         A less obvious reason for this behaviour could be wrong
>         permissions of
>         your home directory on the remote side. Try on the remote site
>         checking /var/log/auth.log and /var/log/damon.log. Sshd should
>         give
>         you some diagnostics in this case. 
>         
>         --
>         regards,
>             Reinhard
>         
>         --
>         ubuntu-users mailing list
>         ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
>         http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is
> right!" 
>    - "Salvor Hardin , Foundation " , Isaac Asimov