This is Bavaria, Germany!
If you want to use ssh the clever way you have to create ssh-keys. You will create two keys which belong together. You can image it like creating a keyhole and a key for that keyhole.
horshack@home:~/tmp$ ssh-keygen -t dsa Generating public/private dsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/home/horshack/.ssh/id_dsa): Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): aPHRASEtoremind4$ Enter same passphrase again: aPHRASEtoremind4$ Your identification has been saved in /home/horshack/.ssh/id_dsa Your public key has been saved in /home/horshack/.ssh/id_dsa.pub The key fingerprint is: c7:b4:f0:1c:d0:1d:a2:0e:8f:97:d9:17:3c:2a:3b:b3 horshack@home.rosi13.de
The file in your home-directory ~horshack/.ssh/id_dsa is your secret, private key. You must keep this file as sure as your passport in your wallet. You can secure this file with a passphrase. That means that you always have to tell the passphrase before you are able to use this file (there is a way to avoid tellling the passphrase again and again, it's called ssh-agent).
Only a file with this special name id_dsa in your home/.ssh-directory will be found automatically by the ssh-client-programs.
The file in your home-directory ~horshack/.ssh/id_dsa.pub is the keyhole. There is only one key on earth which is valid for this keyhole, it it your private key in the file id_dsa. The content of id_dsa.pub can be spread all over your computers. It is a loooooong line looking like this:
ssh-dss AAAAB3NzaC1kc3MAAACBANgJy/cMJimPI...6fQbu3ZeME= horshack@home.rosi13.deThe horshack@home.rosi13.de is only a comment for that keyhole-line. You can change it to what you like, for example richard for office use #3
Create a file on your Linux-machine ~yourusername/.ssh/authorized_keys (the ssh-daemon on this machine looks at the place for your public key) and insert the line in the file id_dsa.pub. It must be _one_ line per key.
You can have more than one public-key-line in the file authorized_keys. You could use an office private-key _and_ your private private-key to log into this machine.
horshack@home:~$ ssh horshack@foreigner.remote.de Enter passphrase for key '/home/horshack/.ssh/id_dsa': YouRPassPhraSE Last login: Sat Jan 14 19:07:54 2006 from p549453fd.dip.t-dialin.netYou can habe a program running passing the key to the remote computer. This program's name is ssh-agent. Use it like this:
horshack@home:~$ ssh-agent SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-ZDV23296/agent.23296; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK; SSH_AGENT_PID=23297; export SSH_AGENT_PID; echo Agent pid 23297;Now copy the shown lines and paste them as commands. They set some environment-variables which lead to the current running ssh-agent.
horshack@home:~$ SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-ZDV23296/agent.23296; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK; horshack@home:~$ SSH_AGENT_PID=23297; export SSH_AGENT_PID; horshack@home:~$ echo Agent pid 23297; Agent pid 23297Now your agent is ready to get a private key from you:
horshack@home:~$ ssh-add Enter passphrase for /home/horshack/.ssh/id_dsa: Identity added: /home/horshack/.ssh/id_dsa (/home/horshack/.ssh/id_dsa)Now you don't have to type in your passphrase anymore. The ssh-agent program is doing this for you:
horshack@home:~$ ssh horshack@foreigner.remote.de Last login: Sun Jan 15 16:43:00 2006 from p549453fd.dip.t-dialin.netThis is also valid for rsync -e ssh
Here are two nice icons for putty:
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the colored icon, the grey icon.