ssh: automatical login configuration

Constantine Evans constantine at evanslabs.org
Sun Oct 8 16:03:23 UTC 2006


Luqman wrote:
>> mario wanted us to know:
> 
>>> I have followed http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Dapper#SSH_Server for
>>> passphraseless login configuration. "ssh remoteuser at remotehost" asks for
>>> passphrase for local private key.
>>>
>>> That is what I did:
>>>
>>> 1) ssh-keygen -t rsa  (on remote and local pcs)
>> Here you need to use a empty passphrase.
>>
> On the following page (unfortunately it is just in German language),
> the author mentions ssh-agent that stores passphrase in local memory for
> a certain period of time.
> 
> http://www.hrz.uni-dortmund.de/S3/sicherheit/ssh-einrichtung/node10.html
> 
> I was thinking of something of that kind. But could not make out how
> exactly it works.
> 
> Anyhow, an empty passphrase will be my choice if that deos not work.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Luqman 
> 
> 

If you are using a terminal in X in Ubuntu, and not a virtual console 
(ssh-agent is started automatically in Ubuntu upon starting X), you just 
need to run ssh-add, which will ask you for your passphrase, and will 
then allow you to use ssh without the passphrase.

If ssh-agent isn't running for some reason, you need to start it before 
running ssh-add. To do this, run ssh-agent, and then set the environment 
    variables that it outputs (eg ssh-agent > ~/.sshagentenv ; . 
~/.sshagentenv)

Constantine





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