Enhance Security with SSH Key-Based Authentication Using ssh-keygen

Using SSH key-based authentication is beneficial for both security and convenience. Learn how to generate and share keys using ssh-keygen in this tutorial.

If you have ever worked as a sysadmin (or you want to in the future), you need a good grasp of SSH. I will not run you through the general concept as it has already been hashed out here at Enable Sysadmin. However, I do want to look at a potentially better way to use it. SSH is the single most used remote access protocol in the world. Therefore, it makes sense that we should try to improve its use as much as possible.

I used SSH to remotely connect to thousands of customer machines during my time as a support engineer, and I am sure that others have had a similar experience. With traditional SSH authentication, you need the username and password for the account you want to log in to every time that you wish to access a system. Doesn't sound that bad, right? But, what happens when you need to jump back and forth between systems regularly? Or what if your responsibilities include remote sessions to the same 100 systems throughout the day for health checks? There is another way to accomplish the log in, and with a little upfront investment, it can be far more efficient overall.