- SSH Key
If you don’t (yet) have a SSH-key on your local workstation you need to create one. A SSH-key provides a safe way to connect with another computer. It exists of two parts: a private and a public key. The private key is stored on your local workstation, and the public key is put on the machine you wish to connect with. To create a SSH-key on your local workstation you must enter the following command:
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -C 'name@domain.com'
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -C 'name@domain.com'
```
Of course you fill in your own e-mail address here. A couple of questions are asked like where to store the key and which password you want to use.
With the next command you can read your public key (and copy/paste it to your clipboard):
```
$ ssh-add -L
$ ssh-add -L
```
2. User account on the server
On the remote server you can add a new user, or you can add your public key to an existing user. This user is going to be used as the UNIX-user for copying files and creating directories. If you want to create a new account this can be done as following:
$ adduser deploy
$ passwd -l deploy
1
2
$ adduser deploy
$ passwd -l deploy
The second command makes sure the user is ‘locked’. This means that the user cannot login on the server with the usual username/password-method, but only with SSH-keys.
3. Add your public key
On the server, make sure you’re logged in as your deployment-user (‘deploy’) in our example. In his home-directory, create a folder called .ssh (if it doesn’t already exist), and in this folder create a file called authorized_keys . In this file you can paste your public key. Make sure the rights of authorized_keys are set to 0600 and that of the .ssh -folder to 0700:
```
$ su deploy
$ cd ~
$ mkdir .ssh
$ echo "(public key)" >> .ssh/authorized_keys
$ chmod 0700 .ssh
$ chmod 0600 .ssh/authorized_keys
$ su deploy
$ cd ~
$ mkdir .ssh
$ echo "(public key)" >> .ssh/authorized_keys
$ chmod 0700 .ssh
$ chmod 0600 .ssh/authorized_keys
```
If all went well, you will now be able to login with SSH on this server, without being prompted for a password. You can test this by trying to connect to the server from your local machine. If you’re not being prompted for a password, you did it right:
```
$ ssh deploy@ssh.myserver.com
```