This guide goes through setting up SSH keys on macOS Mojave 10.14 back to Mac OSX 10.11 and also a secure password-less SSH connection between a local macOS workstation and a remote server also running a Linux variant operating system.

1. Find Public Ssh Key Mac
2. Generate Ssh Key On Mac

The process requires generating a public and private key on the local computer and then adding the public key to the remote servers authorised list. What is great about this is that it allows a password prompt free session, handy for a lot of uses.

Creating a new Key pair in Mac OS X or Linux. To generate a new Key pair, run the following commands on your home computer. Generating a public/private rsa. To generate the missing public key again from the private key, the following command will generate the public key of the private key provided with the -f option. $ ssh-keygen -y -f /.ssh/idrsa /.ssh/idrsa.pub Enter passphrase: The -y option will read a private SSH key file and prints an SSH public key to stdout. Oct 06, 2018 Thats your SSH keys created, the private key is the idrsa and the public one is the idrsa.pub, don’t give out the private one always keep that one only on your local machine. Sharing the Public Key. Create an authorizedkeys in the.ssh directory of the remote computer that you want to connect to. Touch authorizedkeys. A user installs the private key into a private location in their user directory and presents the public key any time a console session is established. T he necessary tools to generate SSH keys are already preset and virtually every modern Unix-like operating system, including Linux.

First thing that you need to do on your macOS machine is to create a directory that will store your SSH keys. Then you will generate a public and private key for your account, launch the Terminal and punch in some commands:

Create a .ssh Directory

Change to the home directory

Create a SSH directory name .ssh and move into it

Make sure that the file permissions are set to read/write/execute only for the user

Create your private and public key, the blank quotes at the end of the command gives the private key no password, so allowing for passwordless logins!

Change into the .ssh directory and list the contents of that .ssh directory

Thats your SSH keys created, the private key is the id_rsa and the public one is the id_rsa.pub, don’t give out the private one always keep that one only on your local machine.

Sharing the Public Key

Create an authorized_keys in the .ssh directory of the remote computer that you want to connect to.

You can create automatic logins by adding the contents of your public key to the authorized_keys file on the remote device.

To see and copy your public key use the cat command and copy the contents:

On the remote computer if needed, change the permssions on the authorized_keys file to write to add the public key, on a new line paste in your public key, and change permissions back to read only after for security.

Allow write on authorised_keys

Paste the entire id_rsa.pub content with vi or nano into the authorized_keys file, if using nano use the -w flag to not use incorrect line breaks.

If the remote host does not have an “authorized_keys” file simply create one and after the public key is pasted in don’t forget to takeaway write permissions.

Going Both Ways

So now when you connect via SSH no password is prompted as the remote computer has your public key which is only decrypted by your private key held in your local .ssh/ directory. If you want the communications to be bilateral then repeat the process in the opposite order between the two.

Now the two computers can securely connect with no password prompting, making it ideal to script between the two for file copies or back ups.

Doing it Quicker

Now instead of typing in

Make an alias in your bash shell you could alias it to

Reload the the shell

Then all you have to type in is the alias

SSH allows for both password based authentication, as well as public key authentication. Public key authentication is generally regarded as being more secure, as it isn’t as prone to brute force login attempts (if you disable password based authentication). The private key can also have a passphrase associated with it, which makes public key authentication even more secure if needed.
Sometimes cloud servers will let you put a public key in as a authorized authentication key when the cloud server is created, preventing the need for password based authentication to be enabled by default.
Generate a new SSH public and private key pair:

“Identifying comment” can be any string that will assist in determining which key this is. “username@hostname” of the machine where you are connecting from would be a good example.
eg:

This will generate two files, “keypair” and “keypair.pub”. /office-2010-professional-plus-product-key-generator.html. “keypair” being the private key that you need to keep secure, and “keypair.pub” being the public key, that can be put on servers that you want to be able to log into with the private key.
Change the filename to suit your needs. This example uses “keypair” for the examples.
The contents of the public key file “keypair.pub” can be inserted into the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file on the machine that you want to be able to connect into remotely. This must be done for the specific user.
Insert public key into authorized keys
View the contents of the public key file:

Find Public Ssh Key Mac

eg:

Take note of the output, and copy it into the clipboard if possible, or use some other method to get this file/data onto the remote machine, as it will be used in the next step.
On the remote server you want to be able to log into:

If you have chosen to copy the public key file to the remote host instead, you can issue the following command instead:

Generate Ssh Key On Mac

Logging into remote ssh server using the private key file
To connect to the remote host using SSH you can use the following command:

This will use the private key called “keypair” created earlier, and assuming the remote server has the public key added to the “user” users authorized_keys file, you should be able to log into the remote system.