Re: SSH key setup

Hello Jim,

Am 04.05.2020 um 17:37 schrieb <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

Is it not the private key that goes on the client machine? The public key
stays on the server?
Let me know if I have that wrong, but I think the private keys goes into
RDi.

It's not about client and server. It's about the direction of authentication.

If you want to log into some machine, you'll have to prove that you're allowed to do so. For that reason, you need the *private key* (like a passport) as a proof. For that you need to keep the private key *private*. If it get's copied, another user can use that key to connect to the remote machine.

The destination itself only has a "worthless" *public key*, like an entry in a list that some private key may connect. Worthless in a sense that nobody can do anything interesting with this public key alone.

Cryptographic magic under the hood ties these keys together.

And, it's very important to understand that authentication is not machine to machine but user profile to user profile. You can perfectly run ssh root@otherserver and log in. But the public key then has to be placed into /root/.ssh/authorized_keys.

As far as I've read from the last issue brought up, it's the same in Windows. The user needs a directory ".ssh" in his home and there is one file "authorized_keys" with all allowed public keys, line by line. I guess line endings of the platform must be adhered.

:wq! PoC

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