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08.04.2020
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I recently read that SSH keys provide a secure way of logging into a Linux and Unix-based server. How do I set up SSH keys on a Linux or Unix based systems? In SSH for Linux/Unix, how do I set up public key authentication?
This page explains a public key and shows you how to set up SSH keys on a Linux or Unix-like server. I am assuming that you are using Linux or Unix-like server and client with the following software:
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  • OpenSSH SSHD server
  • OpenSSH ssh client and friends on Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, {Free,Open,Net}BSD, RHEL, CentOS, MacOS/OSX, AIX, HP-UX and co).

What is a public key authentication?

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OpenSSH server supports various authentication schema. The two most popular are as follows:

  1. Passwords based authentication
  2. Public key based authentication. It is an alternative security method to using passwords. This method is recommended on a VPS, cloud, dedicated or even home based server.

How to set up SSH keys

Steps to setup secure ssh keys:

  1. Create the ssh key pair using ssh-keygen command.
  2. Copy and install the public ssh key using ssh-copy-id command on a Linux or Unix server.
  3. Add yourself to sudo or wheel group admin account.
  4. Disable the password login for root account.
  5. Test your password less ssh keys login using ssh user@server-name command.

Let us see all steps in details.

How do I set up public key authentication?

You must generate both a public and a private key pair. For example:
Where,

  • server1.cyberciti.biz – You store your public key on the remote hosts and you have an accounts on this Linux/Unix based server.
  • client1.cyberciti.biz – Your private key stays on the desktop/laptop/ computer (or local server) you use to connect to server1.cyberciti.biz server. Do not share or give your private file to anyone.

In public key based method you can log into remote hosts and server, and transfer files to them, without using your account passwords. Feel free to replace server1.cyberciti.biz and client1.cyberciti.biz names with your actual setup. Enough talk, let’s set up public key authentication. Open the Terminal and type following commands if .ssh directory does not exists:

1: Create the key pair

On the computer (such as client1.cyberciti.biz), generate a key pair for the protocol.

Sample outputs:

You need to set the Key Pair location and name. I recommend you use the default location if you do not yet have another key there, for example: $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa. You will be prompted to supply a passphrase (password) for your private key. I suggest that you setup a passphrase when prompted. You should see two new files in $HOME/.ssh/ directory:

  1. $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa– contains your private key.
  2. $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub – contain your public key.

Optional syntax for advance users

The following syntax specifies the 4096 of bits in the RSA key to creation (default 2048):
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f ~/.ssh/vps-cloud.web-server.key -C 'My web-server key'
Where,

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  • -t rsa : Specifies the type of key to create. The possible values are “rsa1” for protocol version 1 and “dsa”, “ecdsa”, “ed25519”, or “rsa” for protocol version 2.
  • -b 4096 : Specifies the number of bits in the key to create
  • -f ~/.ssh/vps-cloud.web-server.key : Specifies the filename of the key file.
  • -C 'My web-server key' : Set a new comment.

2: Install the public key in remote server

Use scp or ssh-copy-id command to copy your public key file (e.g., $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub) to your account on the remote server/host (e.g., nixcraft@server1.cyberciti.biz). To do so, enter the following command on your client1.cyberciti.biz:

OR just copy the public key in remote server as authorized_keys in ~/.ssh/ directory:

A note about appending the public key in remote server

On some system ssh-copy-id command may not be installed, so use the following commands (when prompted provide the password for remote user account called vivek) to install and append the public key:

3: Test it (type command on client1.cyberciti.biz)

Intitle biometric intitle key intitle generation. The syntax is as follows for the ssh command:

Or copy a text file called foo.txt:

You will be prompted for a passphrase. To get rid of passphrase whenever you log in the remote host, try ssh-agent and ssh-add commands.

What are ssh-agent and ssh-add, and how do I use them?

To get rid of a passphrase for the current session, add a passphrase to ssh-agent and you will not be prompted for it when using ssh or scp/sftp/rsync to connect to hosts with your public key. The syntax is as follows:

Type the ssh-add command to prompt the user for a private key passphrase and adds it to the list maintained by ssh-agent command:

Enter your private key passphrase. Now try again to log into user@server1.cyberciti.biz and you will not be prompted for a password:

One can list public key parameters of all identities with the -L option:
ssh-add -L
Deleting all private keys from the ssh-agent can be done with the -D option as follows:
ssh-add -D
When you log out kill the ssh agent, run:
kill $SSH_AGENT_PID
You can also add something like the below to your shell startup to kill ssh-agent at logout:
trap 'kill $SSH_AGENT_PID' 0

4: Disable the password based login on a server

Login to your server, type:

Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config on server1.cyberciti.biz using a text editor such as nano or vim:

Warning: Make sure you add yourself to sudoers files. Otherwise you will not able to login as root later on. See “How To Add, Delete, and Grant Sudo Privileges to Users on a FreeBSD Server” for more info.

$ sudo vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
OR directly jump to PermitRootLogin line using a vim text editor:
$ sudo vim +/PermitRootLogin /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Find PermitRootLogin and set it as follows:

Save and close the file. I am going to add a user named vivek to sudoers on Ubuntu Linux:
# adduser vivek
Finally, reload/restart the sshd server, type command as per your Linux/Unix version:

5: How to add or replace a passphrase for an existing private key?

To to change your passphrase type the following command:
ssh-keygen -p

6: How do I backup an existing private/public key?

Just copy files to your backup server or external USB pen/hard drive:

How do I protect my ssh keys?

  1. Always use a strong passphrase.
  2. Do not share your private keys anywhere online or store in insecure cloud storage.
  3. Restrict privileges of the account.

How do I create and setup an OpenSSH config file to create shortcuts for servers I frequently access?

See how to create and use an OpenSSH ssh_config file for more info.

Conclusion

This page explained how to set up ssh keys for authentication purposes. For more info see the following resources:

  • Man pages – ssh-keygen(1)
  • OpenSSH project homepage here.

And, there you have it, ssh set up with public key based authentication for Linux or Unix-like systems.

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16 Jul 2013CPOL
The article guides us to install SFTP server in Windows with Freesshd software listing problems we may face.

Introduction

If you want to set up an SFTP server for windows and you are not looking for serious options, after some searching you would end up with installing Freesshd, a freeware SFTP server installer. Freesshd has been last updated in 2009 and is an orphan now. (Nobody cares if you have a problem working with it.)

Background

Setting up SFTP server in windows OS is a pain, especially if you go with command line installations such as CYGWIN Openssh. Believe me, you need to spend some hours without results. Somehow i was unable to make Openssh work on my server. So, when I looked at other choices, within the deadline I had, had to choose freesshd for a test (not serious) SFTP server setup. It has a GUI for configuring the server options, which makes our life easier.

How to Configure

Installing Freesshd is walk in the park. don't wait, just go on selecting blah blah blah, as you do for all desktop app installations.

  • It would ask you to whether generate private keys, click 'Yes'. These would create host keys for authenticating your server (different from user authentication public keys) to avoid man-in-the-middle attacks when your client accesses it.
  • It would ask you if it needs to be installed as a windows service. If you click No, that means you will only allow users to access you SFTP server, when the application is running. i.e., When you close the freesshd application, the SFTP server goes down. If you click Yes (preferable option), the sshd service will be running with your desktop. i.e, users can connect to your SFTP server, even after system restarts.

Here comes the tricky part, well some what. You must be having a freesshd shortcut icon on your desktop now. If not, look in start menu->all programs -> freesshd. Upon clicking it, you will be prompted with a gratitude message. After accepting it, look for the same icon in right down corner tray (date-time tray). Again, click on it.

You would be displayed with FreeSSHD settings window, with 'Server Status' tab opened. If you see a cross mark against SSH server, that means your SSH server is running as a windows service and don't worry about it. If you chose not to run it as a windows service while installing, then you must start it by 'Click here to Start'.

I am just concerned about SFTP server here. so, i will be skipping all other settings.

Switch on to 'SSH' tab. Listen Address - Select your machine IP address and leave everything as they are.

Switch on to 'Authentication' tab. this tab defines which authentication methods you would use for client authentication. That could be Password, Public key or both. It is good idea to use both.

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  • Public key folder is where your public keys for each user resides. By default, it will be C:Program FilesfreeSSHd. It is good to create a new folder in that path, such as 'Keys' for better administration. Select the new created folder path now. So, you have to place public keys for each user in C:Program FilesfreeSSHdKeys (covered later).
  • Select the password authentication as disabled, if you don't want to have that. if not, select required or allowed.
  • Select the public key authentication as disabled, if you don't want to have that. if not, select required or allowed.

Switch on to SFTP tab. Select a root SFTP directory, which your users can access.

Switch on to Users tab. Click on 'Add' to create virtual users. Give it a name. Here you can specify how each user is authenticated whether via windows login, or Password or public key. You can give each of them permissions to use Shell, SFTP and/or tunneling.

Switch on to Logging tab and check 'Log Events' box which is useful to debug the failure cases.

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Go to C:Program FilesfreeSSHdKeys folder. Create a new text file and place your public key in one line removing all the comments. Save the file with exact username and without any extension.

Now, Click on Apply and OK. Right click on Tray icon, and click on 'Unload' and open desktop shortcut again, to take the changes effect . It is better to restart service (Run -> services.msc ->freesshd) as well, if you are running one.

Now, you can connect to the SFTP server using any clients such as WinSCP, PUTTY. Note that for Publick key authentication, you have to import your private key to SFTP client.

Still not working, make it work

Well, issues you may fall into are quite general.

  • You can't start ssh server through freesshd window ---> Stop the freesshd windows service in run ->services.msc. Start ssh server in window and start service again
  • Your client can't even make a connection ---> make sure that icon is in the tray or freesshd service is running. Make sure that correct IP address is configured in SSH listening address.
  • Your client connects but returns some error. Go to C:Program FilesfreeSSHdfreesshd.log and see the error message. If it is bad key error, that means you didn't configure public key correctly. Check the path in 'Authentication'. Check the public key file given in the path, if it has same name as username. finally check the public key once again. After any change, don't forget to unload and load tray icon.
  • Could be more here..

Conclusion

Freesshd is simple and perfect for setting up test SFTP server. But, it has it's own pitfalls regarding security as it is no longer taken care by it's creators. I have come across another good GUI SFTP setup software, Bitvisessh server. Bitvise presents more options and is more robust. If you want to use it for commercial purpose, you should buy the license.