How tro install a public ssh key

You need to generate an SSH key for the appserve user, then place it in /home/appserve/.ssh/authorized_keys in the remote server.

Then you should be able to log in like:

ssh appserve@remotehost

HE has generated a key on his linux computer he uses and he has sent me the .pub file..... Now what?

The easy way is for him to do `ssh-copy-id appserve@hostname.example.com` and supply the password (for this one time only), which appends his public key to .ssh/authorized_keys under the appserve users home directory.

Or if you don't want him to ever know the password, copy the public key file to that directory and then
`cat hiskeyfile.pub >> authorized_keys. Check that the .ssh directory and authorized_keys file are readable by the appserve user.  Make sure his public key is recognisable in the authorized_keys file so you can remove it if needed later.

If not already there, create an authorized_keys file in the ../appserver/.ssh folder.
Set access rights using: chmod 600 authorized_keys
Copy the contents of the .pub file to the authorized_keys file and that should be all.

Hi

I have done all of this and all seems fine but when we ssh on to the box it does not ask for a passphrase it wants the users password still!!

Could this have anything to do with the fact the users home directory is /var/www/

Its so annoying, I have done this on many servers before with no issues....

This is what I do and what I get:

chris@ubuntu:~/.ssh$ ls
authorized_keys  id_rsa  id_rsa.pub  known_hosts
chris@ubuntu:~/.ssh$ ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub mobileapp@10.10.20.176
/usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: attempting to log in with the new key(s), to filter out any that are already installed
/usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: 1 key(s) remain to be installed -- if you are prompted now it is to install the new keys
mobileapp@10.10.20.176's password: 

Number of key(s) added: 1

Now try logging into the machine, with:   "ssh 'mobileapp@10.10.20.176'"
and check to make sure that only the key(s) you wanted were added.

chris@ubuntu:~/.ssh$ ssh 10.10.20.176
chris@10.10.20.176's password: 

chris@ubuntu:~/.ssh$ ^C
chris@ubuntu:~/.ssh$ ssh mobileapp@10.10.20.176
mobileapp@10.10.20.176's password: 

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Is /var/www/ a shared home directory for any other users, or is it used for anything else?

From http://www.openssh.com/faq.html#3.14 :

3.14 - I copied my public key to authorized_keys but public-key authentication still doesn't work.

Typically this is caused by the file permissions on $HOME, $HOME/.ssh or $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys being more permissive than sshd allows by default.

In this case, it can be solved by executing the following on the server.

    $ chmod go-w $HOME $HOME/.ssh
    $ chmod 600 $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys
    $ chown `whoami` $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys

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Beware, changing ownership or permissions could cause problems for other functions. For now, please login in as `mobileapp` with the password and post the output of:
pwd
ls -ld $HOME $HOME/.ssh $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys

How about creating a new, personal userid (& home directory) for login, with Group rights to /var/www ?