How to create an SSH user account on my laptop
 

I never considered I would want to remote access my laptop, or that I would be able to figure out how (I know....). In any case, my (only) username and password are not all that complicated - just there for deterence more than anything else (I have a barely functioning battery and a FDE hard drive, so if you're going to unplug and transport this baby, it'll shut off; my hard drive PW is solid).

In any case, I wanted to create another account that I could use to log into with SSH to be able to access files. I've started by disabling SSH login to my current user account (DenyUsers myusername). I know I could add a new user to my system with its own home directory and all, but I want it as least 'present' or invasive as possible. So in sum, is there a way to create an SSH only user, and if so, how?

I thought I would check here to get some pointers, to be sure I don't mess up my system!

Thanks a ton in advance!

Hi ziphem

I think I would firstly ask why you do not want to use your regular account?
I ask as, when you setup your ssh key and passphrase, it is this passphrase that will be used and not your non-complicated password.

You may want to fill in the details on which version of Fedora you are on so our Fedora experts know which advice to give.

Good luck :)

Hi, thanks very much for the response. I am running Fedora 9. After reading your message, I realize that I'm not doing things to best way. Up to now, I've always done ssh IP -l username, and that's it. I did a search again and found this website, http://www.puddingonline.com/~dave/p...s-HOWTO-5.html , which looks pretty good for my purposes (nice and basic!). Once I set up the the passphrase and keygen together, I would then presumably need to make the change to prevent login via the basic username & password method, right?

Looking at a different scenario, applying this to a virtual server environment where I don't have physical access to the machine, if I had one key on my flash drive and another on my computer, and lost my flash drive, presumably I could log in (from my home computer), create a new key, and delete the old one, right?

Thanks a ton!

I am presuming you mean to stop the basic name and password through ssh, I would think yes but am not a 100% sure as I have always used the passphrase
(hopefully someone else might help with this bit)

Yep :)

Just upgraded all my SSH logins to key + passphrase - including my virtual dedicated server, verified they work (!!), and disabled password authentication. The VDS for some reason was a nightmare - almost 2 hours to figure out! - but everything's all working and switched over now. Thanks for the guidance, sometimes a basic understanding is what's needed...