Secure Shell (SSH) is a cryptographic network protocol used for secure connection between a client and a server and supports various authentication mechanisms. It is also used to transfer files from one computer to another computer over the network using secure copy (SCP) Protocol.
In this article we will show you how to setup password-less login on CentOS 7, RHEL 7, RHEL 8 using ssh keys to connect to remote Linux servers without entering password. Using Password-less login with SSH keys will increase the trust between two Linux servers for easy file synchronization or transfer.
In this example we will setup SSH password-less automatic login from server 192.168.1.5 as user rasho to 192.168.1.8 with user miroslav.
In this article we will show you how to setup password-less login on CentOS 7, RHEL 7, RHEL 8 using ssh keys to connect to remote Linux servers without entering password. Using Password-less login with SSH keys will increase the trust between two Linux servers for easy file synchronization or transfer.
In this example we will setup SSH password-less automatic login from server 192.168.1.5 as user rasho to 192.168.1.8 with user miroslav.
How do I Setup SSH Passwordless Login
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 uses SSH Protocol 2 and RSA keys by default (see Section 14.1.3, “Protocol Versions” for more information). Important Do not generate key pairs as root, as only root would be able to use those keys. Secure Shell (SSH) is a cryptographic network protocol used for secure connection between a client and a server and supports various authentication mechanisms. It is also used to transfer files from one computer to another computer over the network using secure copy (SCP) Protocol. In this article we will show you how to setup password-less login on CentOS 7, RHEL 7, RHEL 8 using ssh keys to. Nov 26, 2015 Disable Root Login for the security and enable Key based authentication. How to Secure SSH and enable key based authentication in RHEL 7.1. Setting up SSH and PAM (3/3 - optional) - RHEL 7. You can generate an SSH key pair directly in cPanel, or you can generate the keys yourself and just upload the public one in cPanel to use with your hosting account. When generating SSH keys yourself under Linux, you can use the ssh-keygen command.
To setup a passwordless SSH login in Linux all you need to do is to generate a public authentication key and append it to the remote hosts
The following command will generate a new 4096 bits SSH key pair with your email address as a comment:
~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file.The following command will generate a new 4096 bits SSH key pair with your email address as a comment:
Press
Enter
to accept the default file location and file name:Next, the ssh-keygen tool will ask you to type a secure passphrase. Whether you want to use passphrase its up to you, if you choose to use passphrase you will get an extra layer of security. In most cases developers and system administrators are using SSH without a passphrase because they are useful for fully automated processes. If you don’t want to use passphrase just press
Enter
The whole interaction looks like this:
Copy the public SSH key to remote host
Rhel 7 Generate Ssh Key Windows
Copying the key is a simple task and that can be completed by using ssh-copy-id command as shown.
When prompted for the remote user’s password, simply enter it. This will create the
.ssh
directory if missing and the authorized_keys file with appropriate permissions.Test SSH Passwordless Login
Now that we have the key copied to our remote server, we can test the connection. You should not be asked for password:
If everything went well, you will be logged in immediately.
Disabling SSH Password Authentication
To add an extra layer of security to your server you can disable the password authentication for SSH.
Log into your remote server with SSH keys:
Log into your remote server with SSH keys:
Rhel Generate Ssh Key
Open the SSH configuration file
/etc/ssh/sshd_config
:Search for the following directives and modify as it follows:
Generate Ssh Key Windows
Once you are done save the file and restart the SSH service.
Rhel 7 Download
Conclusion
In this tutorial you learned how to SSH to your CentOS 7, RHEL 7, RHEL 8 system using passwordless ssh key. I hope the process was easy. If you have any questions, please post them in the comment section below.