From your local computer (desktop, laptop) used to connect to a remote Linux server
Open a command/terminal window and enter:
ssh-keygen -t rsa
If there is a need for a 4096 bit key, use the command
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
You will be prompted to provide a filename and a password for protecting your private key.
Example Output:
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/username/.ssh/id_rsa):
To accept the default filename (id_rsa), press Enter or Return.
Password:
Enter a password at the prompt and press Enter or Return. If you press Enter or Return without entering a password, the generated private key will not be password-protection.
Your private and corresponding public keys will be created and stored at:
~/.ssh/id_rsa
~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
Copying your public key to remote server
First, you'll need to make sure the remote server contains the file:
~/.ssh/authorized_keys
If the file does not exist, use these commands to create the remote SSH directory and authorized_keys file:
mkdir -p ~/.ssh
touch ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
Now, copy your id_rsa.pub file on your local device over to the remote device
scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub username@remoteserver.domain.com:
Add contents of Public Key file to Authorized Keys files
On the remote system, add the contents of the copied id_rsa.pub key to the authorized_keys file:
cat ~/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
To check the contents of the authorized_keys file:
more ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
SSH into remote system with Public Key
ssh username@remoteserver.domain.com
For example:
ssh username@yoshi.ece.utexas.edu