SSH Key Setup Guide

If you're using Windows, you need to use PowerShell for these commands to work. Linux and maybe Mac should work with these as well.

Check if you have an SSH key already:

ls ~/.ssh

Otherwise, generate a new key:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "email@email.com"

The email part is optional because it's just a comment used to identify yourself. You can also change rsa to a different encryption if needed.

Display the public key:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Copy the public key to your clipboard. Now SSH into your server:

ssh username@server.name

Run these commands on the server:

mkdir -p ~/.ssh
vim ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Paste the key you copied earlier onto the next available line in the file. Since it's Vim, you would probably press Shift+G to go to the end of the page, then i to enter insert mode, then Ctrl+Shift+V to paste the text. Then press Esc and type :wq to save and quit.

This last step is probably optional, but you can also set the permissions for the SSH folder:

chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

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Just for fun, this is what the permissions mean:

7	111	read, write, execute (owner)
0	000	no access (group)
0	000	no access (others)

6	110	read, write (owner)
0	000	no access (group)
0	000	no access (others)