Coding on a Budget

SSH without password HOWTO for CentOS 5.2

This one is short and sweet and is for CentOS 5.2 installs.

On the client machine generate a public key. Do this command as the user you normally run under:

ssh-keygen -t rsa (take the defaults)

There is now a new file called id_rsa.pub in ~/.ssh/

Copy the id_rsa.pub file to the server:

scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub someUser@someServer.com:/home/someUser/

Log into the server:

ssh someUser@someServer.com

Append your client public key to authorized_keys:

cat ~/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Remove the client public key on the server, you don't need it anymore:

rm ~/id_rsa.pub

Set permissions on the server so sshd can see authorized_keys:

chmod 755 /home/someUser

chmod 700 /home/someUser/.ssh

chmod 644 /home/someUser/.ssh/authorized_keys

That's it, the next time you login to the server via the client it shouldn't ask for a password.