Setup SFTP to use public-key authentication

Question

How do you setup server to server SFTP to use public-key authentication instead of user account and password?

Answer 1

In the client you need to generate its public key and add it to server's authorized key list.

The following are the commands you can use.

On client machine

ssh-keygen -t dsa -f id_dsa
mv id_dsa* ~/.ssh/
scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub USER_NAME@SERVER:~/.ssh/HOST_NAME.key

On the server

cat ~/.ssh/HOST_NAME.key >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2