From the course: Linux Tips

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SSH: Managing and distributing keys

SSH: Managing and distributing keys - Linux Tutorial

From the course: Linux Tips

SSH: Managing and distributing keys

- [Instructor] The SSH protocol lets us connect securely to a remote system. SSH uses the user name and password for an account on a remote server to grant access to the user connecting remotely. This can be convenient, but passwords can be guessed or stolen through a variety of means. In order to offer more security when connecting, instead of relying on passwords we can use cryptographic keys or more precisely a key pair. A key pair is made up of two files, a private key that a user keeps and a public key that's stored on a server that they need to have access to. When the user connects, the server and client exchange key information to determine if the user is allowed to log on. We can use an existing key pair or generate a key pair to give a user who needs secure access. Generally it's the best practice to have a separate key pair for each system you need to access, but that isn't always practical and it is okay in some circumstances to use one key for more than one system…

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