[CLUE-Tech] rcp

[Dale Hawkins]

"Michael J. Hammel" <mjhammel at graphics-muse.org> writes:

> outside world) I don't mess with configuring the .ssh files.  I just use
> ordinary password authentication.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert (Kevin should weight with an opinion if
I am totally off!)

There are two points with password authentication.  First, the size of
the authentication "key" with password authentication is much smaller
(standard password size).  Whereas, with the DSA/RSA authentication,
the key defaults to 1024 bit (i.e., much bigger).

Second, once the keys have been properly setup, scripts do not need
user interaction to get stuff done.  For example, I mirror my home
directory to a networked box every couple of hours using rsync and
ssh.  (There was a great link about doing this on slashdot just a few
days ago -- http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/07/1630234&mode=thread&tid=106).

So to automate ssh authentication from "client" to "server" do the
following:

on the client:

---

$ ssh-keygen -t dsa
# Do not supply a pass phrase; just hit enter.

$ cat ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub | ssh <your-server-name-goes-here> cat \>\> .ssh/authorized_keys

---

If you want to go both ways, simply reverse the process.  To test that
everything worked, just ssh into the server.  You should not be
prompted for a password.  ssh also has a verbose mode to facilitate
diagnosis.

Finally, ssh supports data compression on the fly.  This can be
enabled on a per host basis in ~/.ssh/config:

Host <server-name>
Compression yes
CompressionLevel 6

-Dale

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