ssh (open)

[jabr at abreau.net (John Abreau)]

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jbk <jbk at mail2.gis.net> writes:

> What I would like to know is, is it possible to set up the login process 
> so I don't have to enter my password each time? My username is different 
> between machines.

That's what ssh-agent is for. I haven't tried it on Windows, but I would 
expect that it would work pretty much the same there, particularly if 
you're
running it from within cygwin's bash shell.

Under Unix, you'd run ssh-agent, which would print out a couple of 
environment variables that allow the other openssh programs to find the 
running ssh-agent process. You'd then set these in your current shell. 
The easiest way to do this is to combine the two with bash's built-in
"eval" function:

    % eval $(ssh-agent)
or the old style, if you're running a shell other than bash:
    eval `ssh-agent`

Now you run "ssh-add" once; it prompts you for your pass phrase, then 
sends your key to the running ssh-agent process.

After this, when you run ssh (or sftp, scp, etc), it will check with 
ssh-agent for an authorized key, and won't ask you for a password unless 
it can't find one.

I'm assuming here that your DSA key is actually set up and working, 
and that you're being prompted for the key's passphrase and not your 
regular login password. If that's not the case, then the problem is 
your DSA key isn't set up correctly. The first thing I'd check is the 
directory and file permissions on both ends; openssh ignores the DSA 
keys if it thinks the permissions are insecure. I always chmod my .ssh
directories to 0700 and all files within them to 0600.


- --
John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
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