UNIX

15 February, 2012

How to easily set up key-based SSH authentication

You want to set up key-based authentication so you can ssh into a server without entering that pesky password over and over again?

If you have to do this often, then use this wonderful one-liner to install the public key of your system on a remote server1:

cat ~/.ssh/id_?sa.pub | ssh <host> 'mkdir -p .ssh; cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys'

Easy, right2? Replace <host> with your host, or possibly even user@host. To be able to use just <host>, you’ll want to configure SSH host aliases, e.g.:

Host seedbox2
    HostName norris.com
    User chuck
    Port 55555

  1. I use this to add seedboxes to driverpacks.net’s hosting infrastructure — the Seedbox hosting companies switch machines quite frequently, which means I have to change the rsync scripts to point to the new hosts. â†©

UNIX