Introduction. ssh, or secure shell, is an encrypted protocol used to administer and communicate with servers. when working with a linux server, chances are, you will spend most of your time in a terminal session connected to your server through ssh.. Use the linux ssh-keygen command to generate new ssh key pairs. this will produce an rsa or dsa public/private key pair and you will be prompted for a path to store the two key files e.g. id_dsa.pub (the public key) and id_dsa (the private key).. With a secure shell (ssh) key pair, you can create virtual machines (vms) in azure that use ssh keys for authentication, eliminating the need for passwords to log in. this article shows you how to quickly generate and use an ssh public-private key file pair for linux vms..
Ssh keys are always generated in pairs with one known as the private key and the other as the public key. the private key is known only to you and it should be safely guarded. by contrast, the public key can be shared freely with any ssh server to which you wish to connect.. The ssh client allows you to selects a file from which the identity (private key) for rsa or dsa authentication is read. the default is ~/.ssh/identity for protocol version 1, and ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_dsa for protocol version 2.. Using ssh public-key authentication to connect to a remote system is a robust, more secure alternative to logging in with an account password or passphrase. ssh public-key authentication relies on asymmetric cryptographic algorithms that generate a pair of separate keys (i.e., a key pair), one "private" and the other "public"..
