Using SSH Keys
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What are SSH Keys?
By using SSH Keys (a public and private key to be precise), you can easily connect to a server, or multiple servers, without having to enter your password for each system.
Note that it is possible to setup your keys without a passphrase, however that is unwise as if anyone gets hold of your key they can use it. This guide describes how to setup your system so that passphrases are remembered securely.
Generating SSH Keys
If you don't already have OpenSSH installed, install it now as it is not installed by default on Arch.
# pacman -S openssh
The keys can then be generated by running the ssh-keygen command as a user:
$ ssh-keygen -b 1024 -t dsa Generating public/private dsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/home/mith/.ssh/id_dsa): Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): Enter same passphrase again: Your identification has been saved in /home/mith/.ssh/id_dsa. Your public key has been saved in /home/mith/.ssh/id_dsa.pub. The key fingerprint is: x6:68:xx:93:98:8x:87:95:7x:2x:4x:x9:81:xx:56:94 mith@middleearth
It will prompt you for a location (which you should leave as the default), however the passphrase is the important bit! I hopefully need not tell you the rules of a good passphrase?
So what did we just do? We generated a 1024 bit long (-b 1024
) public/private dsa (-t dsa
) key pair with the ssh-keygen
command.
If you want to create a rsa key pair instead of dsa just use -t rsa
(do not specify key length "-b" as default key length for rsa is 2048 and is sufficient).
Copying the keys to the remote server
Now you have generated the keys you need to copy them to the remote server. By default, for OpenSSH, the public key needs to be concatinated into ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
.
$ scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub mith@metawire.org:
This copies the public key (id_dsa.pub
) to your remote server via scp (note the :
at the end of the server address). The file ends up in the home directory, but you can specify another path if you like.
Next up, on the remote server, you need to create the ~/.ssh directory if it doesn't exist and concatinate the key authorized_keys file:
$ ssh mith@metawire.org mith@metawire.org's password: $ mkdir ~/.ssh $ cat ~/id_dsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys $ rm ~/id_dsa.pub $ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
The last two commands remove the public key from the server (which isn't needed now), and sets the correct permissions on the authorized_keys file.
If you now disconnect from the server, and attempt to reconnect, you should be asked for the passphrase of the key:
$ ssh mith@metawire.org Enter passphrase for key '/home/mith/.ssh/id_dsa':
If you are unable to login with the key, double check the permissions on the authorized_keys
file.
Remember key passphrases
Now you can login to your servers by using a key instead of a password, but how is this any easier, as you still need to enter the key passphrase? The answer is to use a SSH agent, a program which remembers the passphrases of your keys! There a number of different tools available, so have a read through and choose the one which seems best for you.
ssh-agent
ssh-agent is the default agent included with OpenSSH.
$ ssh-agent SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-vEGjCM2147/agent.2147; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK; SSH_AGENT_PID=2148; export SSH_AGENT_PID; echo Agent pid 2148;
When you run ssh-agent
it will print out what environment variables it would use... To make use of these variables run the command through the eval
command.
$ eval `ssh-agent` Agent pid 2157
You can add this to your .bashrc
so that it will be run whenever you create a new shell:
$ echo 'eval `ssh-agent`' >> ~/.bashrc
Note the correct quotes, the first ones are single quotes, where as the second are curly single quotes!
Now that the ssh-agent
is running, we need to tell it that we have a private key and where that is.
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_dsa Enter passphrase for /home/user/.ssh/id_dsa: Identity added: /home/user/.ssh/id_dsa (/home/user/.ssh/id_dsa)
We were asked for our passphrase, entered it, that's all. Now you can login to your remote server without having to enter your password while your private key is password-protected. Sweet isn't it?
The only downside is that a new instance of ssh-agent
needs to be created for every new console (shell) you open, that means you have to run ssh-add
every time again on each console. There is a workaround to that with a program or rather a script called keychain which is covered in the next section.
Using keychain
Keychain manages one or more specified private keys. When initialized it will ask for the passphrase for the private key(s) and store it. That way your private key is password protected but you won't have to enter your password over and over again.
Install keychain from the extra repo:
# pacman -S keychain
Add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc the following:
eval `keychain --eval --nogui -Q -q id_rsa`
Or
/usr/bin/keychain -Q -q --nogui ~/.ssh/id_dsa [[ -f $HOME/.keychain/$HOSTNAME-sh ]] && source $HOME/.keychain/$HOSTNAME-sh
If necessary, replace ~/.ssh/id_dsa with ~/.ssh/id_rsa. For those using a non-Bash compatible shell, see keychain --help or man keychain for details on other shells.
Close your shell and open it again. Keychain should come up and if it's your first run it will ask your for the passphrase of the specified private key.
Using ssh-agent and x11-ssh-askpass
You need to start the ssh-agent everytime you start a new Xsession. The ssh-agent will be closed when the X session ends.
Install x11-ssh-askpass which will ask your passphrase everytime you open a new Xsession:
# pacman -S x11-ssh-askpass
Prepend this into your ~/.xsession
:
eval `/usr/bin/ssh-agent` SSH_ASKPASS=/usr/lib/openssh/x11-ssh-askpass ssh-add < /dev/null # then the end of the file with for example "exec dwm"
GNOME Keyring
If you use the GNOME desktop, the GNOME Keyring tool can be used as an SSH agent. Setup is simple, first install it:
# pacman -S gnome-keyring
Next you need to add your SSH keys, and enter the passphrase.
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_dsa Enter passphrase for /home/mith/.ssh/id_dsa:
Now when you connect to a server, the key will be found and a dialog will popup asking you for the passphrase. It has an option to automatically unlock the key when you login. If you check this you won't need to enter your passphrase again!
PuTTY
The above procedure is a bit complicated when using PuTTY on Windows since PuTTY can't directly use keys generated by ssh-keygen. The private key needs to be converted using PuTTYgen which you can find here. The procedure is then as follows:
- Generate the key pair with ssh-keygen on you Linux computer (you can log in with your usual username/password using PuTTY)
- Add the public key to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file
- Move the private key to the Windows machine
- Load the private key with PuTTYgen and click Save private key. This will convert the key so that PuTTY can use it.
- Start PuTTY, go to SSH->Auth and find the private key. Then simply connect to your Linux machine. You will be prompted for your username and passphrase (if you chose to enter one when you generated the keys).
Note that reversing the procedure, that is, generating the key pair with PuTTYgen and converting the public key with ssh-keygen, will NOT work.
Useful Links / Information
- SSH with Keys HOWTO
- HOWTO: set up ssh keys
- OpenSSH key management, Part 1
- OpenSSH key management, Part 2
- OpenSSH key management, Part 3
- Getting started with SSH
- Manual Pages: ssh-keygen(1)
- Sharing SSH keys on 2 linux servers
- How to set up SSH keys: Frustration with "Server refused our key" [PuTTY]
- Securing your secure shell (SSH) service