SSH: Generating and using SSH keys
One of the preferred method of authentication on network devices is using SSH with a SSH public key. In order to be able to authenticate yourself, you have to generate a SSH key pair. A SSH key is composed of two parts, one private key (which should remain "private" and also should be password protected ) and one public key which should be installed on the SSH server in order to authenticate you. SSH client on Linux: In order to generate a SSH key pair on Linux, you will need to use "ssh-keygen" tool, which is a part of the "openssh-client" package on Debian-like operating systems: smocanu@debian7:~$ dpkg -S $(which ssh-keygen) openssh-client: /usr/bin/ssh-keygen or a part of "openssh" package on RedHat-like operating systems: smocanu@centos6 ~$ rpm -qf $(which ssh-keygen) openssh-5.3p1-94.el6.x86_64 The generating process is quite simple, just run the "ssh-keygen" command, and it will ask you the location of the new key ...