Using amazon's EC2 Service, which is awesome in every regard.
Only problem is, I have problems logging in with the SSH keys they automatically genarate.
I have no idea what the problem is, but have no desire to look any further, as I need to get back to working on my application. …
tl;dr; So, what are the security implications that make SSH keys so much stronger than 20+char long passwords?
From my understanding SSH keys primarily protect against brute force attacks – but if I created a username and password with 20 or 64+ charectors…how much more secure would using keys be?
Best Answer
Well, a typical SSH key is somewhere around 1024 or 2048 bytes. That's a chunk longer than any password you're going to type in a reasonable amount of time. The whole advantage to ssh keys is that your key password (you do set passwords on your ssh keys, right?) is effectively a proxy to the higher security of the key.
The big advantage to keys is that your password never traverses the network. A relatively common attack is to install a trojaned version of the ssh server; when people type in passwords, the modified server records them and sends them elsewhere. This is a particular problem because these same passwords often are used for access to a number of systems/services.
ssh keys largely eliminate this problem.
Ssh keys are usually simple to set up. You stick the public key on the remote system in the appropriate
authorized_keysfile, and configure your local ssh to present the appropriate private key when you connect. If you're having some specific problems we can probably help you work things out.