Centos Generate Ssh Public Key

Nov 20, 2019  This method involves generating an SSH key pair on the source machine and place it on the destination machine with a single command (ssh-copy-id). The ssh-copy-id command appends the generated SSH public key to existing keys in /.ssh/authorizedkeys file on the destination. Oct 31, 2011  The public key idrsa.pub needs to be added to /.ssh/authorizedkeys on the bremote/b machine, and this can be accomplished bycode ssh-copy-id remoteuser@remotemachine/code The locally-generated private key.

A lost SSH public-key or a web service generates an SSH key but does not provide the public-key part to you. What to do now? There is a solution for this situation.

When you have an SSH key you need the public key to setup SSH passwordless login with SSH-key. But if you have lost the public key part but still have the private key, there is a way to regenerate the key.

With the public key missing, the following command will show you that there is no public key for this SSH key.

The -l option instructs to show the fingerprint in the public key while the -f option specifies the file of the key to list the fingerprint for.

To generate the missing public key again from the private key, the following command will generate the public key of the private key provided with the -f option.

The -y option will read a private SSH key file and prints an SSH public key to stdout. The public key part is redirected to the file with the same name as the private key but with the .pub file extension. If the key has a password set, the password will be required to generate the public key.

To check the details of the generated public key execute the following command as shown above. Gta 4 key generator free download.

The output of this command shows the key size as the first column, the fingerprint as the second column and after the file name, the type is shown in brackets. In the example above, a 4096 bit RSA key.

Read more of my posts on my blog at http://blog.tinned-software.net/.

Related posts:

Ssh Public Key File

I am a new RHEL 8 server sysadmin. How do I configure SSH public key-based authentication for RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) 8 server?
Introduction – SSH is an acronym for secure shell. It is a suite of cryptographic network protocol. It allows users to log in and transfer files securely over the unsecure network such as the Internet. OpenSSH is an implementation of SSH protocol on RHEL 8. You can log in using RHEL 8 user and password account. However, OpenSSH project recommends log in using a combination of a private and public SSH keys.
Advertisements

Sample set up for our RHEL 8 server


Where,

  • You generate a key pair on your Linux/Unix/macOS desktop.
  • Place the public key on RHEL 8 server.
  • One can unlock public key using a private key stored on your desktop with the help of ssh command.
  • When both the public and private key correct you can log in without a password.

How do I set up SSH keys on RHEL 8 server?

The procedure to set up SSH key on Red Hat Enteprise Linux 8 server:

  1. On your local desktop type:
    ssh-keygen
  2. Install public key into remote RHEL 8 server using:
    ssh-copy-id user@remote-RHEL8-server-ip
  3. Use ssh for password less login:
    ssh user@remote-RHEL8-server-ip

Let us see all commands and steps in details.

How to create the ed25519 or RSA key pair

The syntax is:
ssh-keygen -t ed25519
ssh-keygen -t rsa
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f ~/.ssh/aws-lighsail.key -C 'My AWS SSH Keys'
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/.ssh/linode-usa-www1-vps.key -C 'My Linode SSH Keys for www'

Where,

  • -t rsa OR -t ed25519 : Specifies the type of key to create. The possible values “dsa”, “ecdsa”, “ed25519”, or “rsa” for SSH protocol version 2.
  • -b 4096 : Specifies the number of bits in the key to create.
  • -f~/.ssh/aws-lighsail.key : Specifies the filename of the key file.
  • -C -C 'My AWS SSH Keys' : Set a new comment.
Centos generate ssh keys

Generate Ssh Public Key

I am going type the following command on my Ubuntu desktop to create the key pair:
$ ssh-keygen -t ed25519
I strongly recommend that you set up a passphrase when prompted.

How to copy the public key

Now our key paid generated and stored in ~/.ssh/ directory. You must copy a public SSH key file named ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub (or ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub if you created RSA key) to the RHEL 8 server. Try the ssh-copy-id command as follows:
$ ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/fileNameHere.pubuser@remote-RHEL8-server-ip
For example:
$ ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub vivek@192.168.2.211

How to log in using ssh and without a password

Now try logging into the machine, with the ssh command as follows:
$ ssh user@rhel-8-server
$ ssh vivek@192.168.2.211

You should be able to log in without a password. If you set up a passphrase, unlock it as follows for your current session so that you don’t have to enter it every time you run ssh, sftp, scp, rsync and other commands:
$ ssh-agent $SHELL
$ ssh-add

Centos Generate Ssh Public Key Mac

Optional settings for root user

Disable root user log in all together on RHEL 8 via ssh. Log in as root user on RHEL 8 and run following to add a user named vivek to wheel group:
# usermod -aG wheel vivek
# id vivek

Allows users in group wheel can use sudo command to run all commands on RHEL 8 server. Next disable root user login by adding the following line to sshd_config:
# vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Disable the password for root login and only allow ssh keys based login:

Ssh Public Key Windows

Save and close the file. Reload the ssh server:
# systemctl reload sshd.service
For more info see “Top 20 OpenSSH Server Best Security Practices“.

Conclusion

Centos Ssh Key Setup

You learned how to set up and use SSH keys to manage your RHEL 8 based server. For more info see OpenSSH man pages here.

ADVERTISEMENTS