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SSH RSA/DSA authentication via the GUI
Authored by: m4rk on Dec 16, '03 11:27:58AM

Hm. RSA auth certainly works for me. On my Mac, I ran "ssh-keygen -t rsa" to generate a keypair (use a blank password when prompted). I then copied ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub to the target machine and put it in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. Make sure it's mode 600 on the target machine (chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys).

You should then be able to SSH from the Mac to the target machine with no password.

Alternatively, do what I just described but choose a password during key generation. Copy and chmod the key as before, then run:

`eval ssh-agent`

(note the backticks, they're not apostrophes)

followed by:

ssh-add

which will prompt you for the password you chose when creating ~/.ssh/id_rsa.

You now have the SSH authentication agent running and should be able to SSH to the target machine without needing to enter the password.

"man ssh-agent" and "man ssh-add" for more information.



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SSH RSA/DSA authentication via the GUI
Authored by: fletcherpenney on Dec 16, '03 11:46:53AM

Agreed - I have been using RSA/DSA authentication since 10.1 without any difficulties. You set it up just as you set up ssh on any other OS I have used....

One way of making it easier on OS X, however, is to use SSHAskPass. This program asks for your keychain password when you log in, and then it automatically enters your password for any ssh connection that uses an encrypted RSA/DSA key. ( Much better than using empty passwords in my opinion.)



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SSH RSA/DSA authentication via the GUI
Authored by: GaelicWizard on Dec 16, '03 02:10:20PM

Is SSHAskPass an Aqua app, or for X11? I've got one for X11, but I'm dying for one for Aqua (and I do NOT want something like SSHKeychain, which is a hack in my opinion). Any suggestions?

---
Pell



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SSH RSA/DSA authentication via the GUI
Authored by: guzzijason on Dec 19, '03 11:04:07AM

Hmmm.... I never meant to imply that RSA auth didn't work out of the box... I've been using it for a while. However, it *doesn't* work when you use a connection management tool like Telnet Launcher, as I mentioned in the original post. The point of my hint was to demonstrate how to get GUI apps like Telnet Launcher to use make use of the necessary env variables to get RSA to work.

Based on the other responses here, there is more than one way to skin this particular cat.

Sorry for the confusion.



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