[NBLUG/talk] OpenSSH2 with public key (no password)

[Bob Blick]

Hi everyone,

It seems every time I try to use something that has BSD-style
"documentation" I get real frustrated.

Basically I'm trying to use scp or scftp in batch mode, so I must first
have the two machines set up to do ssh without a password. Note that this
is two linux boxes that ssh fine using a password. Client is behind an NAT
firewall.

The docs I've read say to generate a key pair on the client, which I have,
copy the public key to host as ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2 and then bingo it
should work. However it doesn't. Tried both rsa and dsa.

Also read somewhere I need to have ssh-agent running. Tried that on the
client but got no help from the "documentation" so it's likely it needs
some config file to work properly. I have a feeling this is where the real
trouble is, since I do not normally have this service running on the
client and the host machine is not mine and does not have this service
running either.

Also read somewhere I need to do it completely differently, create a .ssh2
directory and a file within called autorization with the line "key
public_key_name" and do something complementary on the client. No
satisfaction there.

OK, help please.

Thanks,

Bob