Many times, when working on a linux server, I have found that typing in my password over and over gets annoying. So, I have created a public key, put it on my mac, then upload that key into my auth hosts file on the server and bam! no more typing in my password.

Yes, I know, there are security risks. But I figure, if you know my password to get onto my box, you will most likely know my server passwords, so you deserver it anyway.

Below is an example I have put together (or took from a friend).

To create a public key, follow the following instructions:

• Add users
  adduser chuck
• Setup the new group
  groupadd dev
• Update the users for the dev group
  usermod -g dev chuck
  usermod -g dev apache
  usermod -g dev root

Set up passwordless SSH tunnels from your box to server

Configuring No-Password Operation

1. On the SSH client system and as the user:
   ssh-keygen -q -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa -C ‘’ -N ‘’
2. Copy the ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file from the client to the user account on the ssh server.
   scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub username@ipaddress:id_rsa.pub
3. On the SSH server and as the user.
   mkdir ~/.ssh
   chmod 0700 ~/.ssh
4. On the SSH server as the user, type the following command: (some systems use authorized_keys2 rather than authorized_keys)
   % cat ~/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
5. On the SSH server as the user, verify that the keys file has appropriate permissions.
   chmod 0600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys