Using SSH without passwords

The following describes how to setup a key-based and thus passwordless SSH access (e.g. needed to access CVS over SSH using Borland's JBuilder X).

Requirements
- SSH (SSH is installed on CML Macs by default)
- LDAP-Account (your account as project member)

SSH public and private keys
For passwordless SSH access each user needs to create a private and public key set. On CML Macs both keys need to be placed in the $HOME/.ssh directory. If there is no such directory in your $HOME it needs to be created:

$:> mkdir $HOME/.ssh

(only the $HOME-directory owner should have access to this directory corresponding to access rights set to 700 using chmod).

Then create the private and public key:

$:> ssh-keygen -t dsa -f $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa -P ''

A key pair is created within the .ssh directory (id_dsa and id_dsa.pub). Then run the following command:

$:> cat id_dsa.pub >> $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys2

That is it for CML Macs. For passwordless access from other than the CML Macs, the private key needs to be placed in the $HOME/.ssh directory on that particular machine. The public key (inside authorized_keys2) needs to stay in your LDAP account's $HOME-directory!!!