Setup SFTP to use public-key authentication

Question

How do you setup server to server SFTP to use public-key authentication instead of user account and password?

Answer 1

In the client you need to generate its public key and add it to server's authorized key list.

The following are the commands you can use.

On client machine

ssh-keygen -t dsa -f id_dsa
mv id_dsa* ~/.ssh/
scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub USER_NAME@SERVER:~/.ssh/HOST_NAME.key

On the server

cat ~/.ssh/HOST_NAME.key >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2

Answer 2

Remember to

chmod 700 .ssh

and also

chmod 600 authorized_keys

Answer 3

This is a solution for windows users

I had a similar issue on windows so I used Putty from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

If you need to generate a public key then use: http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/puttygen.exe

Then, when you want to automate a batch to download from the FTP server the Pageant in order to load the private key into session http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/pageant.exe

Then use the PSFTP to connect and perform actions http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/psftp.exe

So here is sample code for the batch:

!--Loading the key to session--!
@C:\pageant.exe "C:\privatekey.ppk"
!--Calling the PSFTP.exe with the uaser and sftp address + command list file--!
@C:\psftp user@your.server.address -b C:\sftp_cmd.txt

Command list file (sftp_cmd.txt) will like like this:

mget "*.*" !--downloading every thing
!--more commands can follow here
close

Now, all you need to to schedule it in scheduled tasks *I wish it was simple as unix's cron job....