Re: Can't login without password

From: Cylurian (fsromero@hotmail.com)
Date: 01/05/03 

From: fsromero@hotmail.com (Cylurian)
Date: 5 Jan 2003 00:35:23 -0800

"Charles Howse" <chowse@charter.net> wrote in message news:<v1erbj7v7rorf7@corp.supernews.com>...
> Hello Group,
> Using Redhat 8.0, Ive got ssh working on 2 machines.
> I've created the public key for each machine and placed each in the
> ~/.ssh/known_hosts file on the other machine.
> When I:
> # ssh <remote machine>
> I am prompted for the password.
> I thought copying the public keys was supposed to do it?
> How do I setup to login without providing a password?

I assume that you are using Openssh. If so, this is what I did.

First on the client machine go to the ~/.ssh folder. If there is no
~/.ssh folder don't worry just go to your home directory. Then type
the command:

ssh-keygen -t dsa

Hit return everytime without putting anything. Two file will be
created, id_dsa and id_dsa.pub. The id_dsa.pub is the key that the
server needs. id_dsa.pub is the file you send to the server. Leave
the id_dsa file alone.

Make sure that there is a ~/.ssh folder in the server. You may do
step one on the server to create a ~/.ssh folder (this will create the
correct permission on the .ssh folder). To send the id_dsa.pub key
from the client to the server, type (make sure you are at ~/.ssh):

cat id_dsa.pub | ssh user@server.com "cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys"

This will ask for the users' password. Now you should be able to ssh
from the client to the server by typing:

ssh user@server.com

If it doesn't work then you might have two problems (or more). First
the file you sent (authorized_keys) was corrutpted. To fix this you
need to copy id_dsa.pub file on a floppy and rename it to
authorized_keys to the server (at ~/.ssh. Or gzip the id_dsa.pub file
and scp it to the server and rename it.

The second problem is the permissions on the .ssh folder, home
directory, or authorized_keys. I found out the hard way that if the
permissions are not correct on the .ssh folder, the home folder or the
authorized_keys file, ssh will not automatically authenticate without
a password. If your home directory has a "group" that can write to
the directory the might be one reason why the authentication without a
password might not work. If you look at /etc/sshd_config you might
find "StrictModes yes", this means that the home directory folder, the
authorized_keys file or .ssh folder needs to have the correct
permissions.

Hope that helps.

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