Perform SSH Login Without Password Using ssh-keygen & ssh-copy-id

Step 1: Create public and private keys using ssh-key-gen on local-host

goldenjohn@local-host$ [Note: You are on local-host here]

goldenjohn@local-host$ ssh-keygen

Generating public/private rsa key pair.

Enter file in which to save the key (/home/goldenjohn/.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/goldenjohn/.ssh/id_rsa.

Your public key has been saved in /home/goldenjohn/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.

The key fingerprint is:

33:b3:fe:af:95:95:18:11:31:d5:de:96:2f:f2:35:f9 goldenjohn@local-host

Step 2: Copy the public key to remote-host using ssh-copy-id

goldenjohn@local-host$ ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub remote-host

goldenjohn@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

goldenjohn@local-host$ ssh remote-host

Last login: Sun Nov 16 17:22:33 2008 from 192.168.1.2

[Note: SSH did not ask for password.]

goldenjohn@remote-host$ [Note: You are on remote-host here]

The above 3 simple steps should get the job done in most cases

    That it , please carry on ...with smiles..