SSH keygen auth problems

[Matt Palmer_2]

Hi,

I have a situation where I would like to use secure keys to send data between to Suse SLES 8 hosts, but I am having difficulty in creating successful keys.

Currently I am trying ssh-keygen -d on both hostA and hostB then copying the id_dsa.pub to authorized_keys on the 'other' hosts.

after this I am using ssh-agent sh -c'ssh-add' which tells me that the identity has been successfully added.

The problem that I have is that the process although I have used the same procedure on both boxes is only working on one of them. I.E:I can ssh HostA from HostB without having to type in a password. When I try to use it the other way around, the ssh process keeps asking me to type in the password for user@HostB. I hope my info is not too vague.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.I wonder if I have missed something or if there is a default file that may exist on the unsuccessful machine.

Many thanks

[Alexander Chuzhoy]

ssh-keygen -d
creates by default the file ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub

you have to copy it to destined machine:
x.x.x.x:/home/username/.ssh/authorized_keys
then when issuing this command:
ssh username@x.x.x.x
you'll login to this machine without the prompt of username password.Check that you do exactly the same steps...

[Matt Palmer_2]

Hi,

this is what I have tried already, but it is not working on the 2nd machine.

thanks

Matt

[Alexander Chuzhoy]

Remove the files authorized_keys ,known_hosts
from the "bad" machine and try the procedure again.
In case it doesn't help try reinstalling
the openssh package.

[Matt Palmer_2]

still no joy..

[Olivier Drouin]

run the ssh clients and deamon in debug ( -dd )

[Alexander Chuzhoy]

check the permission on .ssh directory .Only the owner should have the permissions.If the permission is too open -there's a problem

[Matt Palmer_2]

I'll give the -dd a try, that might give me some leads.

Many Thanks

[Abdul Rahiman]

Well, few more hints.. may be helpful.
1. By any chance did you copy-paste the key on the other server instead of actually sftp/scp-ing?
2. Are you running the exact same version of ssh on both servers? Check ssh -V on both. If the versions are different, there are some addiional steps required to export/import the keys.
3. Check to see if there is any differences between the /etc/ssh/sshd_config files.
4. Try to authentciate without ssh-agent initially, just using the keys on the file instead to see if that works.
5. If none works, post the poutput of sshd debug log as well as ssh -vvv (connection log)

regds,
abdul.

[Steven E. Protter]

Attached is a word doc. You can bypass the X part and use cat, but pay special attention to permissions in the doc.

SEP