I did the following steps on RHEL 4 server. I could then execute “ssh fatwire@XYZ” and I didn’t need to enter any pass phrase or password. This is exactly what I was looking for. I could then create a cron job on the client (ABC) that executes some steps locally and then executes some commands on the remote server (XYZ). I thought I was done but, apparently the “exec ssh-agent bash” needs executed for each session and then the ssh-add needs run and the pass phrase supplied. This is not what I was expecting. Is this the tool I should be using to execute commands on a remote server without having to supply password/phrases at run time? If so, how do I get the ssh-agent and ssh-add commands to be persistent between logons. I can put the ssh-agent command in the bash_profile but, the ssh-add seems to only work interactively. Is there a way to execute ssh-add and pass in the pass phrase?

Start an SSH session from the client machine (ABC) to the remote machine (XYZ).

Answer Yes to question asking if you want to add the remote to a list of known hosts.

Create a key. From the client machine (ABC) enter “ssh-keygen –t dsa”.

Copy the file to the remote machine (XYZ).
scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub fatwire@XYZ:.ssh/authorized_keys

Change permissions on remote machine.
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Start ssh-agent on client machine (ABC) if not running.
exec ssh-agent bash

Add the remote machine (XYZ) to the client’s (ABC) list.
ssh-add
Enter passphrase

Thanks for any and all help.

you shouldn't need anything additional to get preshared key authentication at all. does it not still work without the ssh-agent stuff? I've certainly never needed it.