> Is there a way to make ssh automatically login with a password... (I
> realize this isn't very secure in terms of the workstation but I am not
> worry about that for me)....
>
> I tried doing someting like:
>
> echo "password" | ssh -l user site
>
> but it doesn't seem to read the password.. (perhaps it doesn't look for
> input until after it has gone by).
>
> I like using SSH for port forwarding.. I would like it to be able to login
> automatically and set up the tunnel -- from a script/
You should use public key authentication for this instead of a password.
It works like this (these instructions are for ssh-2.4.0):
- generate a DSA key for yourself by running (on the client)
"ssh-keygen -P ~/.ssh2/scriptkey". The -P option specifies empty
passphrase so that it can be used in scripts.
- Add line "IdKey scriptkey" to your ~/.ssh2/identification file (create
the file if it doesn't already exist) (on the client)
- Copy your public key file to the server:
"scp ~/.ssh2/scriptkey.pub serverhost:.ssh2/scriptkey"
- log into the server using your password
- Edit .ssh2/authorization, and add the line "key acr.pub". (on the
server)
- Log out from the server. Try logging into the server again. You
should now be able to log in without having to type a password.
After this, you can use Secure Shell from scripts to perform any tasks on
the remote host without having to worry about a password.
Note that the generated private key file "~/.ssh2/scriptkey" on the
client now serves as your authentication token. It should be protected
with the same level of care as your password (or a script containing a
password). (You can further increase security by using the "forced
command" feature, which is triggered by the "Command" keyword in the
.ssh2/authorization file on the server. Its idea is to allow only a
predefined command to be executed on the server when logging in using a
particular keu. See "man ssh2" for more information.)
Tatu
