December 7, 2023

Part 2: Connect to shared server (VPS) using SSH

If you don’t already have a key - generate a key pair locally:

$ ssh-keygen

I chose the default. Some suggests not to type a password if you are the only person to have root access to the machine.

Once the key was generated, I copied key to remote shared server:

$ ssh-copy-id root@IP_address_of_VPS

The shell prompted me to type the password for the username of the VPS.

Still on the local machine, I ran:

$ ssh root@IP_address_of_VPS 

The shell prompted me to verify the fingerprint of the SSH key of the server.

The VPS provider I use sends the fingerprint via email when setting up the server.

If you need to find out the SSH’s key fingerprint: https//yctct.com/ssh-show-fingerprint

If the key matches, type yes.

You should see something like:

root@vps_username:~#

Security

Once I am sure SSH is enabled, I disable log in via password and else by un-commenting the following line and setting them up to no in the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config.

PasswordAuthetification no
UsePam no

Make sure you use sudo vi to edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config.

When you are done, reload the SSH daemon:

systemctl reload sshd

Source: https://landchad.net/sshkeys/

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