I have Server1 and Server2, i want to be able to scp from Server1 to Server2 without being prompted for a password. Here's what I did. All of this is under the same username and password on both servers.

On Server1, I did a "ssh-keygen -t rsa", then copied the contents of id_rsa.pub.

On Server2, I vi'd the the .ssh/authorized_keys in that users home directory and pasted the info i just copied.

Now from Server1 when I do a "scp testfile username@Server2:/tmp" i still get prompted for a password.

On Server1 and Server2 the .ssh directory in that user's directory is 700 for permissions.

Any ideas?

Does this help?


Cheers,
Tink

Hi Tink. the .ssh directories on both servers are 700, authorized_keys is 600 on target, and all the id_{dsa,rsa} I can find on both are 0600, and ~ is only writeable by that account.

Anything else i should check?

sounds like you got everything.

can you share the tail section of 'ssh -vvv (destination ip)'

i didnt even know you could do a -vvv. here's the output, i changed the username to protect myself with dumb questions

debug2: we did not send a packet, disable method
debug3: authmethod_lookup publickey
debug3: remaining preferred: keyboard-interactive,password
debug3: authmethod_is_enabled publickey
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /home/UsernameRemoved/.ssh/identity
debug3: no such identity: /home/UsernameRemoved/.ssh/identity
debug1: Offering public key: /home/UsernameRemoved/.ssh/id_rsa
debug3: send_pubkey_test
debug2: we sent a publickey packet, wait for reply
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,gssapi-with-mic,password
debug1: Offering public key: /home/UsernameRemoved/.ssh/id_dsa
debug3: send_pubkey_test
debug2: we sent a publickey packet, wait for reply
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,gssapi-with-mic,password
debug2: we did not send a packet, disable method
debug3: authmethod_lookup password
debug3: remaining preferred: ,password
debug3: authmethod_is_enabled password
debug1: Next authentication method: password

wait, i figured it out!!! I looked in my authorized_keys on my destination, and realized when i copied and pasted from one putty session to another, it put line breaks in maybe because my putty windows were too small or something, once i removed the line breaks to have the phrase as one line with no spaces it worked. Thanks for that -vvv tip, that was cool!

good job. thanks for updating us with the fix.

luckily i had just read somewhere that the phrases could contain spaces or something, so it made me wonder. Hopefully my goof helps save someone down the road haha.

Ideally you'd want to use ssh-copy-id for that job rather
than copy & paste via terminal.

thanks, didnt know that command existed either, was just following some directions i found online to try it.