Lab 1.1 Lab Environment Setup

mralabama36541

Hello,

I am having a hard time understanding the SSH Keygen password setup. can someone please walk me through this.

chrispokorni

Hi @mralabama36541,

The SSH keys are more secure and less hassle method of authentication than the typical userID + password authentication mechanism. With SSH keys we can access remote resources without having to memorize passwords while the authentication mechanism automatically validates us.

The SSH key generator builds a key-pair, a set of a private key and a matching public key. The private key remains with the user, and it should be treated just like a password - kept safe and secure, not shared with anyone, while the matching public key will be stored on the remote system. However, unlike passwords, the user is no longer required to memorize the key.

SSH key pairs are commonly used by cloud providers to ensure users' secure access to cloud resources (either cloud platform generated or user generated), or they can be used by configuration management tools or other automation mechanisms to gain safe and secure access to provisioned resources. They are also used by distributed client-server type applications where the client system needs to be authenticated by the server system.

Detailed steps guiding the key generation process and the public key insert on the remote cloud resource can be found in the lab guide.

Regards,
-Chris