SSH (Secure SHELL) is an open-source and most trusted network protocol that is used to login to remote servers for the execution of commands and programs. It is also used to transfer files from one computer to another computer over the network using a secure copy (SCP) Protocol.
In this article, we will show you how to setup password-less login on RHEL/CentOS and Fedora using ssh keys to connect to remote Linux servers without entering a password. Using Password-less login with SSH keys will increase the trust between two Linux servers for easy file synchronization or transfer.
My Setup Environment
SSH Client : 192.168.0.12 ( Fedora 21 ) SSH Remote Host : 192.168.0.11 ( CentOS 7 )
If you are dealing with a number of Linux remote servers, then SSH Password-less login is one of the best ways to automate tasks such as automatic backups with scripts, synchronization files using SCP, and remote command execution.
In this example, we will set up SSH password-less automatic login from server 192.168.0.12 as user tecmint to 192.168.0.11 with user sheena.
Step 1: Create Authentication SSH-Keygen Keys on – (192.168.0.12)
First login into server 192.168.0.12 with user tecmint and generate a pair of public keys using the following command.
[tecmint@tecmint.com ~]$ ssh-keygen -t rsa Generating public/private rsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/home/tecmint/.ssh/id_rsa): [Press enter key] Created directory '/home/tecmint/.ssh'. Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): [Press enter key] Enter same passphrase again: [Press enter key] Your identification has been saved in /home/tecmint/.ssh/id_rsa. Your public key has been saved in /home/tecmint/.ssh/id_rsa.pub. The key fingerprint is: 5f:ad:40:00:8a:d1:9b:99:b3:b0:f8:08:99:c3:ed:d3 [email protected] The key's randomart image is: +--[ RSA 2048]----+ | ..oooE.++| | o. o.o | | .. . | | o . . o| | S . . + | | . . . o| | . o o ..| | + + | | +. | +-----------------+
Step 2: Create .ssh Directory on – 192.168.0.11
Use SSH from server 192.168.0.12 to connect server 192.168.0.11 using sheena as a user and create .ssh directory under it, using the following command.
[tecmint@tecmint ~]$ ssh sheena@192.168.0.11 mkdir -p .ssh The authenticity of host '192.168.0.11 (192.168.0.11)' can't be established. RSA key fingerprint is 45:0e:28:11:d6:81:62:16:04:3f:db:38:02:la:22:4e. Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes Warning: Permanently added '192.168.0.11' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts. sheena@192.168.0.11's password: [Enter Your Password Here]
Step 3: Upload Generated Public Keys to – 192.168.0.11
Use SSH from server 192.168.0.12 and upload a new generated public key (id_rsa.pub) on server 192.168.0.11 under sheena‘s .ssh directory as a file name authorized_keys.
[tecmint@tecmint ~]$ cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh sheena@192.168.0.11 'cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys' sheena@192.168.1.2's password: [Enter Your Password Here]
Step 4: Set Permissions on – 192.168.0.11
Due to different SSH versions on servers, we need to set permissions on .ssh directory and authorized_keys file.
[tecmint@tecmint ~]$ ssh sheena@192.168.0.11 "chmod 700 .ssh; chmod 640 .ssh/authorized_keys" sheena@192.168.0.11's password: [Enter Your Password Here]
Step 5: Login from 192.168.0.12 to 192.168.0.11 Server without Password
From now onwards you can log into 192.168.0.11 as sheena user from server 192.168.0.12 as tecmint user without a password.
[tecmint@tecmint ~]$ ssh sheena@192.168.0.11
awesome document about the remote ssh setup….
Here’s a much easier way to do it.
On the client:
Done!
Thanks, this worked like a charm!
I just learned recently that ssh has a simple command to automate the installation of the new public key on remote servers that does steps 2-4 automatically:
ssh-copy-id.Hey, how does it work if i want to shut-down 2 or more remote servers with this method, because when i try to do a 2nd remote then i can’t log into the 1st without password any more :(
That doesn’t make sense to me. Do you mean that you are trying to shutdown machine c from machine b? Or are you trying to shut down both b and c from a
Actually, I think you may be repeating the key gen step twice. Create the key once and copy to both targets.
Possible to update your publickey authentication method from ssh1 to ssh2 protocol-2 – as ssh1 is pretty much obsolete. As well proper use of ssh-keygen to generate higher value key-types for better ssh security!
Good, Nice article and easy to understand. keep posted these kind of technical stuff. will help to new people who is new the environments.
This seems very complicated all you have to do is use the command ssh-copy-id [email protected] and it would copy that id into the users authorized host files and you can ssh without a password.
Thanks buddy, you explained this well. I liked your explanation and it was helpful to me in creating a passwordless ssh on my single node cluster. I’ll try similar steps on my multinode hadoop cluster.
This will work for same users (with the name) on different servers to login into each other user without password? for me its asking password again while I try to login
i think you need to restart the sshd service
yes, it works for both hosts using the same user account. The service does not need to be restarted