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Ssh Public Key Authorization

Here is how to set up public key SSH authentication, instead of password based authentication:

On your local machine, run :
ssh-keygen -t rsa
Save the key to ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Enter a passphrase, if required, or leave blank

copy the key to the remote machine, and secure the authorization file:
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh remoteuser@remoteserver "mkdir -m 700 -p ~/.ssh ; cat - >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys ; chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"

This single step does 3 things on the remote server:
1 - creates the ~/.ssh directory if it doesn't exist.
2 - appends your public to the end of the authorized_keys file.
3 - sets the appropriate permissions to the authorized_keys file.

The remote .ssh directory MUST be chmod 700 - ssh will ignore the files if it is publicly readable.