Monthly Archives: November 2007

Summary

To setup ssh and keychain to allow ssh related jobs to run from cron:

• generate keys with a password (ssh-keygen -t dsa) and install keychain. Do only on secure machines ie ones that only you (or a small number of trusted admins) can logon to as root – typically your laptop/desktop and a secure admin server
• add the following lines to your ~/.profile:

• some sites say .bash_profile, but I use .profile as I use both bash and zsh (don’t have both as then only .bash_profile will be read)
• I check keychain is executable with -x as I have the same .profile on all machines (synced via a script)
• I use rsa keys as I work with older ssh1 machines; dsa keys are preferable.

export HOSTNAME=`hostname` # HOSTNAME not set some machines
if [ -x /usr/bin/keychain -a -f $HOME/.keychain/${HOSTNAME}-sh ] ; then
/usr/bin/keychain $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa
source $HOME/.keychain/${HOSTNAME}-sh
fi

• (more…)