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AIX SSH setup

Hello,

I have a quick question regarding SSH key setup. If I'm setting up SSH key between servers, I normally generate private and public key and place public key to remote servers and connect. Insted of placing public key, if I place private key in remote server, can I connect?

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woolmilkporc

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mokkan

ASKER

I know this is recomended, just asking.

woolmilkporc

You might want to have a look at chapter 1.3 of this publication:

http://www.linuxhowtos.org/Security/understandssh.htm#1_3

This is its basic assertion:

The user's private key is a very sensitive piece of data - with it, anyone can connect to any host on which the corresponding public key is in the authorized_keys. Therefore, the user's private key is never written to disk unencrypted.

The private key is encrypted using a passphrase made up by the user. The passphrase should generally be around 20 characters in length to prevent brute force cracking attempts against it. With a safe passphrase, there is little risk in exposing the private key.

A potential attacker being in possession of your public key can do literally nothing with it.

Gerwin Jansen

>> if I place private key in remote server, can I connect?
No, you cannot connect. Are you having trouble connecting? Can we help you with that?

arnold

Are you thinking of using a single private key on multiple systems for your account I rider to be able to connect to others without the need of adding many multiple public keys from each system/account into each system to which you need access?

unixsme

@mokkan, you must have a corresponding public key on the remote server in order to connect via ssh-key method

mokkan

ASKER

thank you