file transfers via scp

[Rick Garland]

Hi all:

HPUX 11.11 on rp7410

My predessor had set up many scripts, mostly in cron, to transfer files from 1 host to another. This process had been done via rcp and the root account had .rhosts on all systems.

I want away from this. I have installed SSH and did some configurations. One config I have is no deny root logins via SSH.

This poses a problem as the files being transfered are root owned files.

How can root transfer these files via SSH utilities? Most of these transfers are via cron so the passwd is not readily available at Oh-GOD-thirty in the morning.

Many thanks!

[Jordan Bean]

public-key authentication eliminates the need for passwords, unless the private key is symmetrically enciphered with a passphrase.

The source files may be owned by root, but do the target files need to be also? If not, have root scp to a non-root account that authorizes by public-key.

[Andrew Cowan]

You can also "scp" using public-keys between to non-privileged users then have a later cron job move and modify the ownerships and permissions of the files. In this way your script can do such things as make a backup of the original file and do some lexical scanning to ensure that a trojan file has not been introduced.