Comments on: SSH your Debian servers without password

By: Edmund

Edmund — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:01:39 +0000

Hi,
I am trying to connect from a UNIX machine to a Windows SSH server without a password entry.
I tried the steps above but I have no luck in doing it.
Any suggestions?

By: Petru

Petru — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 16:13:47 +0000

Ok… I figured out, u need to run ssh-agent and ssh-add to use this like I whant. I’t works but it dependes of the ssh-agent and that ok for me…
Thanx.

By: Petru

Petru — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 15:59:21 +0000

Nice, I follow your post and it work, but u forgot to add that in place of password you have to use the passphrase… I’m intrest in accessing the ssh-server like rsh without any type of autentification..

By: Joern

Joern — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 19:09:58 +0000

Tim this is not a problem since pam-ssh is available. So with your KDM/GDM/XDM login you can give the ssh-agent the passphrase – call it single-sign-on.

By: Tim Spencer

Tim Spencer — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:50:33 +0000

The only problem with this is that this only works until you logout and then you have to restart the agent and put in the passphrase…it’s still cool though.

By: bmynars

bmynars — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 04:18:25 +0000

This article is a little bit of a simplification of what one can/should do while using SSH. For example, generally speaking, using DSA keys over RSA is recommended (security reasons). As always, there are pros and cons. However, generally speaking, DSA is a better choice. Also, this article fails to mention that once a “key phrase” (referred to as ‘password’ here) is entered, your idea of ‘passwordless’ log on flies out the window in a jiffy. You can go with kludges like “ssh-agent” to manage your key phrases but the bottom line is, we all want a passwordless authentication. Well, then let’s say it: press ENTER when prompted for a password while generating a key and let’s spare those who search for the answers on how to do this any further investigations.

If one is really paranoid about having one’s keys without a key phrase, then, you can protect it (to an extent) on the remote site by specifying what host a particular key can be accepted from via authorized_keys file. But this is a discussion for a later time.

By: Joern

Joern — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 12:04:32 +0000

scp and cat of your ID is obsolete since ssh-copy-id exists.