= Generating SSH Keys =

Generating SSH keys for remote access should be easy. In fact it is, here are the steps:

 1. {{{ # ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 8192}}}
 2. Accept all the defaults at this point and it will store them in your ~/.ssh/ directory as id_rsa (the private key) and id_rsa_pub (the public key).
 3. copy the file to the user and machine {{{ # ssh-copy-id [user]@[host] }}} taking care to replace [user] and [host].

That really is it, BUT!!! And its a big but: If for some reason you don't have permissions set properly, it will not work.

Make sure that you have permission set as follows:

{{{
 # chmod 700 ~/.ssh
 # chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
}}}

If it still doesn't work, check permissions on your home directory the default in sshd_config file (look for it if you must) contains a line that says: {{{StrictModes = yes}}}. This means that if you have given access to your home directory to a group, sshd will prevent you from using a publickey login method. There are multiple ways to fix this. One is to not give access to your home directory. If you must, you can change the line to be {{{StrictModes = no}}}. If you are insanely careful (my servers rarely have anyone but me using them), see: http://superuser.com/questions/466114/ssh-and-home-directory-permissions for another option.