Turn off password mac os x how to#
Turn off password mac os x full#

Again, accept the default location for the save, and leave the passphrase empty. Type ssh-keygen -t rsa to generate an RSA public key. To generate the SSH2 key, the process is basically the same. This sort of defeats the purpose of this hint, which is password-free remote connectivity! If only you have access to your machine, it's not a huge security exposure, but just remember that anyone will be able to connect to any of your remote hosts if they have access to your keyboard. If you enter one, you will be prompted for it each time you run an SSH connection. The passphrase can be used to add a layer of security to the process. Your public key has been saved in /Users/username/.ssh/identity.pub.ĥd:01:3f:4g:47:d9:a3:12:9c:f1:37:8a:1j:82:73:7e you've just done is create your public SSH1 key. When it's done, you'll see some output like: Your identification has been saved in /Users/username/.ssh/identity.

You'll see three prompts you can hit return for the default save location, and leave the passphrase empty (we'll cover that a bit later). The first step in the process is to create the public keys on HomeMac. The following example assumes you wish to connect from your personal Mac (called HomeMac for this example) to your work Mac (called WorkMac), and that you'd like to enable both SSH1 and SSH2. What complicates matters somewhat is that SSH1 and SSH2 use different public keys, so you have to set them up twice. If the keys match, then SSH knows that the machine can be trusted, and there is no requirement for a password. In order to connect without a password, using either SSH1 or SSH2, you need to establish a match between the public key of the 'connecting' machine (stored on the 'connect to' machine) and the 'connecting' machine's private key.

Turn off password mac os x full#

Although SSH is set up to work out of the box on OS X, you still need to do some things to take full advantage of its power. SSH2 can use public-key cryptography or password checking (the hosts.equiv methods apparently are security holes, so their use is strongly discouraged). SSH1 can use a 'hosts.equiv' file, 'hosts.equiv' with RSA host authentication, RSA public-key cryptography, and (finally) simple password checking, although the passwords are encrypted in transmission. Both methods can connect via a number of authorization schemes. The first degree of complexity in making this work is that there are two levels of SSH protocols - SSH1 and SSH2. We'll set it up so that it never reaches that stage. If you watch the verbose mode go by, you'll see that the last thing it resorts to is checking your password. You can see this activity by using ssh -v -l username hostname, which invokes verbose mode. When you initiate an SSH connection, there's a bunch of stuff that goes on behind the scenes to make the connection.

Turn off password mac os x how to#

If you don't yet know how to do this, and would like to learn (along with a bit of a primer on SSH's security system), read the rest of the article. There are a number of authentication schemes to make sure you're who you say you are, and if you implement SSH correctly on both machines, you can connect from one OS X box to another without entering a password, but still have a totally secure connection. You enable this in the GUI (in the Sharing prefs panel, Application tab, Allow Remote Login), and then connect at the command line with 'ssh -l username hostname'. If you have more than one Mac and want to securely connect from one to the other at the command line, SSH is the program of choice. Hence, this ease skip ahead if you're an advanced UNIX user this is probably a 'no brainer' to most of you in that demographic.Įveryone probably knows that OS X includes SSH, a secure remote connection command-line tool. today convinced me that I was not alone in my confusion. I know it wasn't obvious to me, and an email exchange with Michael G. This may not be the most advanced tip in the world, but then again, it may not be obvious to everyone who uses OS X.