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3 Steps to Perform SSH Login Without Password

Written by Mel Kham on . Posted in Linux tutorials

You can login to a remote Linux server without entering password in 3 simple steps

using ssky-keygen and ssh-copy-id as explained in this article.

ssh-keygen creates the public and private keys. ssh-copy-id copies the local-host’s public key

to the remote-host’s authorized_keys file. ssh-copy-id also assigns proper permission to the

remote-host’s home, ~/.ssh, and ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.

This article also explains 3 minor annoyances of using ssh-copy-id and how to use ssh-copy-id

along with ssh-agent.

Step 1: Create public and private keys using

ssh-key-gen on local-host :

jsmith@local-host$ [Note: You are on local-host here] pirat9@local-host$ ssh-keygen Generating public/private 
rsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/home/jsmith/.ssh/id_rsa):[Enter key] Enter passphrase 
(empty for no passphrase): 
[Press enter key] Enter same passphrase again: [Pess enter key] Your identification has been saved in /home/jsmith/.ssh/id_rsa.
 Your public key has been saved in /home/jsmith/.ssh/id_rsa.pub. The key fingerprint is: 
33:b3:fe:af:95:95:18:11:31:d5:de:96:2f:f2:35:f9 jsmith@local-host

Step 2: Copy the public key to remote-host

using ssh-copy-id :

jsmith@local-host$ ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub remote-host jsmith@remote-host’s password: 
Now try logging into the machine, with “ssh ‘remote-host’”, and check in:  
.ssh/authorized_keys  to make sure we haven’t added extra keys that you weren’t expecting.

Note: ssh-copy-id appends the keys to the remote-host’s .ssh/authorized_key.

Step 3: Login to remote-host without

entering the password

pirat9@local-host$ ssh remote-host Last login: Sun Nov 30  17:22:33 2008 from 192.168.1.200
 [Note: SSH did not ask for password.]  pirat9@remote-host$  [Note: You are on remote-host here]

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Mel Kham

Founder of Unixmen, Living in Amsterdam. Am working in my free time to help people to understand the Opensource and to explain them in easy way how to make the fist steps to the the light. Working day and night with my Co-founder Zinovsky to keep this website live even with less resources.
  • http://www.docplanet.org dokma

    It’s nice to know some nifty ways to use passwordless SSH login once you’ve set it up: [url=http://www.docplanet.org/linux/ssh-login-without-password/]SSH login without password[/url].

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Recent Comments

Snake

|

Wow, great. That’s what i’m waiting for too. I want to make DC with LDAP ( Active Directory alternative) and SAMBA on Ubuntu. :-)

Blawer

|

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you rules!!! all the other “help” in google are useless… yours was very helpful. Thanks again

piCool

|

Great ! we have another another master trick :-)

Yilmaz Ulugtekin

|

Just delete the space after the slash (/) it will work.

Pat L

|

I tried it and it works with a regular zip file, but if you password-protect the .zip file it does NOT work.

 
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