SSH Tips

• my usual reference for SSH key exchange

So for quick copying, to generate an SSH key pair on the client machine:

ssh-keygen -t rsa

and to send your client machine's key to any server on which you wish to be able to log in without a password (e.g. ~/bin/send-key):

#!/bin/sh
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh ${1} "cat - >> .ssh/authorized_keys"

or if there is a non-standard port number:

#!/bin/sh
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh -p <the-port> root@${1} "cat - >> .ssh/authorized_keys"

To pull a backup tarball from a server and install it locally (e.g. after booting from a rescue CD):

ssh root@server "cat /path/to/backup.tgz" | tar zxvf -