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Chapter 9, Administration and Automation
#78 Create a Passwordless Login
HACK
HACK
#78
Create a Passwordless Login Hack #78
Forget about those passwords and make administering a remote server
easier.
By far, the most common method of remotely logging in to Linux machines
is by using the Secure SHell (SSH). This encrypted method of accessing far-
flung computers is a popular choice for system administrators, but despite
its popularity, repeatedly logging in and out of computers and entering pass-
words over and over again can be a chore. This chore is significantly
increased when you manage a number of different computers, all with differ-
ent passwords.
This hack explores how to create a passwordless login. Although this sounds
like security suicide, it isn’t because it uses special encrypted keys to allow
access to the remote computer. You do this by generating both a public and
a private key. The public key (a key that you can give to people) is uploaded
to the remote server as an authorized key, and when you connect to the
remote server, the private key on your local machine is compared to the
public key. If they work together, access is granted.
The other benefit of the passwordless login is that you can tie it into your
desktop environment and manage files on the remote machine graphically. I
discuss this later in this hack.
Generate Public and Private Keys
To create a passwordless login, you ...