Configure SSH Key-Based Authentication on a Linux Server(CentOS 7)

There are a few different ways of logging into an SSH server, SSH-key-based authentication and password-based authentication are the most basic methods . Here we'll focus on the SSH-key based authentication.

 

Before we go, make sure we have the SSH key on the local computer.

path: ~/.ssh

create a SSH-key if necessary:

ssh-keygen

(optional)copy the public key to the clipboard:

pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub 

 

Option1: Copy the public key to the remote server: 

ssh-copy-id username@remote_host

 

Option2: Logging into the remote server and check if the authorized_keys file is exists.

path: ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

create the .ssh directory and the authorized_keys if necessary

mkdir .ssh
touch ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

copy the public key to authorized_keys

echo public_key_string >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

 

(optional) Disable Password Authentication on the Server

sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Inside the file, search for a directive called PasswordAuthentication. This may be commented out. Press i to insert text, and then uncomment the line and set the value to "no". This will disable your ability to log in via SSH using account passwords. To actually implement these changes, we need to restart the sshd service:

sudo systemctl restart sshd.service