Passwordless Login to CSIF

Setup passwordless login to CSIF using SSH Key Authentication and SSH Config.

Outcome:

• Be able to connect to CSIF by simply using command ssh csif

What you need:

• VS Code
• VS Code Extension Remote - SSH

For Windows

• Open Windows Powershell
• Run command ssh-keygen
  • You don't need to (of course you can) change the default location or set a password for the key, so press enter directly when you see any prompts
  • This command generates a pair of public and private key used in SSH Key Authentication
• Run command cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh username@pcXX.cs.ucdavis.edu "cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"
  • You need to replace username and XX in the command
  • This command uploads the public key you just generated to a CSIF computer
• Open VS Code and click the little green button in the bottom-left corner of the window
• Select Remote-SSH: Open Configuration File... and choose the first option prompted
• Replace the file content with the following and save it (of course, you need to replace username and XX too)

  Host csif
      HostName pcXX.cs.ucdavis.edu
      User username
      IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
  

• Return to Windows PowerShell and run command ssh csif to connect to a CSIF computer passwordlessly
  • If you are still prompted for entering a password, your SSH Key Authentication is not set up correctly
  • You can connect to CSIF in this passwordless way on your computer from now on!

For macOS & Linux

• Open Terminal
• Run command ssh-keygen
  • You don't need to (of course you can) change the default location or set a password for the key, so press enter directly when you see any prompts
  • This command generates a pair of public and private key used in SSH Key Authentication
• Run command ssh-copy-id username@pcXX.cs.ucdavis.edu
  • You need to replace username and XX in the command
  • This command uploads the public key you just generated to a CSIF computer
• Open VS Code and click the little green button in the bottom-left corner of the window
• Select Remote-SSH: Open Configuration File... and choose the first option prompted
• Replace the file content with the following and save it (of course, you need to replace username and XX too)

  Host csif
      HostName pcXX.cs.ucdavis.edu
      User username
      IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
  

• Return to Terminal and run command ssh csif to connect to a CSIF computer passwordlessly
  • If you are still prompted for entering a password, your SSH Key Authentication is not set up correctly
  • You can connect to CSIF in this passwordless way on your computer from now on!

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