Re: sftp and key locations

[Scott Klement <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tim,

The design of SSH (sftp is just a different UI for ssh) is that you 
generate "identity" keys -- i.e., the key actually identifies the user.  
So the way it is intended to work is that each user generates their own 
key, which identifies them everywhere (not just one vendor, but everyone 
they communicate with SSH).  It is their unique, secure, cryptographic 
identity.

However, it is certainly possible to use a single key for multiple 
users.  You can do that by pointing to a different location for the 
identity file using command-line options.  I don't have the ref manual 
in front of me, but it was something like -oIdentityFile=/xxx/yyy, and I 
think a different poster already suggested this.

What's important to understand about this is that on the remote system 
(the SFTP server in this case) everyone using this key will appear to be 
the same user.

If that's what you're going for, this technique should work fine.

-SK



On 8/21/2018 12:33 PM, tim wrote:
> I have a vendor we send data using sftp. i created the process with my 
> profile so all the key info exists in my folder /home/me/.ssh. i would 
> like to be able run this process for any user on the iseries.
>
> do i have to create a .ssh folder for each user and copy the keys into 
> those folders, or can i have 1 main location for all the ssh stuff?