Ssh – Passwordless ssh into the same machine

sshssh-keys

OK, I know the basics of how to set up passwordless ssh: create a keypair using ssh-keygen then add the public key from id_dsa.pub into the host's .ssh/authorized_keys. So for two different machines client and host, I can ssh from client into host without entering a password. Good so far.

But I have some software which requires that client be able to ssh into itself without a password. Naively I do the same thing: simply copy .ssh/id_dsa.pub into .ssh/authorized_keys, same directory. But it doesn't work. If I type

user@client:~$ ssh client

then it still asks for my password, even though the public key of client is in its own authorized_keys file.

Am I missing something?

Best Answer

Use ssh-copy-id user@client and it will copy the correct data to the correct place. If it's the same user as you, though, it can be problematic since it may overwrite something important. Make a copy of your .ssh directory before trying.

EDIT: Strangely enough, I tried to add my id_rsa.pub to my .ssh/authorized_keys and it worked. Are you sure that your local sshd is configured to accept shared key authentication?

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