Women in Technology

Article:		The SSH Cryptosystem
Subject:		Pass phrase prompt at each login
Date:		2002-11-15 13:27:20
From:		anonymous2
i followed the instructions in this article and although the public/private key pair seem to be working fine i am prompted to enter my passphrase each time i log into the remote system! from a security standpoint this is great but i was hopeing using rsa keys would provide more convenience by removing the login prompt... of course since my passphrase is longer than a typical password, the result is worse then what i started with! any suggestions? thanks

Showing messages 1 through 3 of 3.

• Pass phrase prompt at each login
  2003-05-27 14:48:14  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  That is probably because you used a passphrase when generating your key.
  The purpose of the passphrase is so that if someone were to steal your identity key (by booting up on a recovery floppy e.g., and snagging your key) it wouldn't be of any use to them if they didnt know your passphrase too. This is what they call 2 tier authentication, both a key and a passphrase are required ...
  
  If you remake your key without a passphrase then it should log your right in.
  Of course, if the mafia or fbi steal your computer then they will be able to log right in also !

• Pass phrase prompt at each login
  2002-11-18 21:12:01  rktrujillo [View]
  
  
  The first post from anonymous cites as article that gives a more secure alternative using ssh-agent.
  
  http://www-109.ibm.com/cgi-bin/click.pl?url=http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc2/&qry=SSH
  

• Pass phrase prompt at each login
  2002-11-18 20:40:17  rktrujillo [View]
  
  
  It isn't specified in the article.
  When generating the key just hit enter when it asks for a paraphrase. Then after you copy the key over you can ssh in without a password or paraphrase.