| Hack: | Quick Logins with ssh Client Keys | |
| Subject: | Don't use plaintext keys for interactive logins | |
| Date: | 2003-04-07 09:43:31 | |
| From: | anonymous2 | |
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There's no reason to use a plaintext (passwordless) key for interactive logins, ever. Despite what the author says, a passwordless key is NOT "the same" level of security as a password, since the key sits ON DISK, unencrypted, and a password does not. A better analogy would be putting your sensitive login password into a file named "StealMe.txt". Instead, use a strong passphrase and run ssh-agent to avoid the need to type passwords. For interactive use, this is a far better solution: now an attacker would need TWO secrets (your key and your passphrase) to impersonate you, and you still get passwordless logins.
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Novice - almost caught by existing authorized_keys2
2003-12-30 22:32:09 anonymous2 [View]
| Showing messages 1 through 1 of 1. |
Fortunately, I remembered at the last moment that the consultant who had set up my system had an existing keyring. I went in and looked prior to running the command. Sure enough - there was authorized_keys2 just setting there, waiting to be overwritten.
But now I'm screwed, because the hack doesn't tell me - a novice - how to append the key onto the existing key. And I'm afaid to just go scp .ssh/id_rsa.pub >> server:.ssh/authorized_keys2 in case it doesn't work right, and I screwup my existing file.
Help!
Plus what's this about authorized_keys2 itself being depreciated? I thought this was a new book?! I would have assumed we'd be getting the very latest in technology.
Can someone (in desending priority order) please:
a: give me the command to safely append to the existing authorized_key2 file,
b: point me to how I can create a key-pair I can split between Linux and Windows, so I can use this trick with PuTTY to connect from Windows to my Linux servers, and
c: if we shouldn't be using authorized_key2 because its depreciated, correct the hack to the proper usage, and tell me how to fix my current authorized_key2 configuration to the proper usage/configuration.
Thank you very much.