Tag: privatekey

Setting up ssh with private and public key pair

Steps:

1. Create the key pair on the source server without passphase protection by below command
   
   # ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
   
   Then the private key: id_rsa and the public key: id_rsa.pub should be created. The default key file path should be ~/.ssh/id_rsa and without passphase
   
   
2. Change the private key permission to 600
   ** Please keep this private key safely. It is just like your account password **
   
   # chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
   
   
3. Copy the public key file to destination server
   
   # scp id_rsa.pub [user]@[destination_server]:~/.ssh/ id_rsa.pub
   
   
4. Append the public key to the authorized_keys under the home/.ssh directory. If the host does not have authorized_keys, create an empty file and set the file permission to 600. Then remove the public key file.
   
   # cat id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
   # rm id_rsa.pub
   
   
5. Try to ssh from the source server to destination server with the private key
   
   # ssh [user]@[destination_server] –i ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Fixing Key Permissions And Ownership

Both the host and the client should have the following permissions and owners:

• ~/.ssh permissions should be 700
• ~/.ssh should be owned by your account
• ~/.ssh/authorized_keys permissions should be 600
• ~/.ssh/authorized_keys should be owned by your account

Client environments should additionally have the following permissions and owners:

• ~/.ssh/config permissions should be 600
• ~/.ssh/id_* permissions should be 600