Automatic ssh key installer available

William Stearns wstearns at pobox.com
Mon Apr 9 16:40:15 EST 2001


Good day, all,
	I had some trouble getting ssh keys to work.  Since the different
ssh implementations use different filenames, directories, and internal
formats, it's not at all obvious how to set them up to use rsa or dsa
keys.  I finally found a sample chapter from the O'Reilly ssh book online
that covered the process (many thanks, O'Reilly; I went out to buy the
book the next day!)
	I've written a program that will set up the various keys and files
involved in an ssh connection.  One runs it on the client box like so:

ssh-keyinstall -s TheRemoteServerName

	and it sets up the local files and uses ssh and scp to set up the
remote box.  Obviously, you need a valid account and password on the
remote box.
	The program can be found at
ftp://ftp.stearns.org/pub/ssh-keyinstall/
	A tar file and rh7 rpm's can be found there.
	While it hasn't been tested with all combinations, I believe it
should work with any combination of ssh.com's ssh1, openssh, ssh.com's
ssh2, and datafellows ssh1 on the client and server.  Datafellows ssh2
should also work, but I don't have a signature for that yet.
	I'd sincerely love to get any feedback about whether it works or
not for any client and server combinations, as I only have a few of the
client/server combinations available.
	Cheers,
	- Bill

(Please CC me on any discussion as I'm not subscribed to the openssh-dev
list - thanks.)

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	"Anyone who can contemplate quantum mechanics without getting dizzy
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William Stearns (wstearns at pobox.com).  Mason, Buildkernel, named2hosts,
and ipfwadm2ipchains are at:                http://www.pobox.com/~wstearns
LinuxMonth; articles for Linux Enthusiasts! http://www.linuxmonth.com
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