If password less login is not recommended for commercial sites, what would be the best option to to do it without interaction?

Question

continued Not even able to login password-less.

$ ssh -v [email protected]
OpenSSH_6.0p1, OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config
debug1: Connecting to example.com [XX.XX.XX.X1] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /home/admin/.ssh/id_rsa type 1
debug1: identity file /home/admin/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1
debug1: identity file /home/admin/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: identity file /home/admin/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1
debug1: identity file /home/admin/.ssh/id_ecdsa type -1
debug1: identity file /home/admin/.ssh/id_ecdsa-cert type -1
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.8p1 Debian-7ubuntu1
debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.8p1 Debian-7ubuntu1 pat OpenSSH_5*
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_6.0
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none
debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none
debug1: sending SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_INIT
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_REPLY
debug1: Server host key: ECDSA 3b:81:30:2e:7a:c8:ca:51:7a:46:bb:50:cb:d3:a2:9b
debug1: Host 'example.com' is known and matches the ECDSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /home/admin/.ssh/known_hosts:2
debug1: ssh_ecdsa_verify: signature correct
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: Roaming not allowed by server
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Offering RSA public key: /home/admin/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password
debug1: Trying private key: /home/admin/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: Trying private key: /home/admin/.ssh/id_ecdsa
debug1: Next authentication method: password
[email protected]'s password:

sshd_config file on the site I want to connect but not able to.

# Package generated configuration file
# See the sshd_config(5) manpage for details

# What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for
Port 22
# Use these options to restrict which interfaces/protocols sshd will bind to
#ListenAddress ::
#ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
Protocol 2
# HostKeys for protocol version 2
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
#Privilege Separation is turned on for security
UsePrivilegeSeparation yes

# Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key
KeyRegenerationInterval 3600
ServerKeyBits 768

# Logging
SyslogFacility AUTH
LogLevel INFO

# Authentication:
LoginGraceTime 120
PermitRootLogin no
StrictModes yes

RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
AuthorizedKeysFile      %h/.ssh/authorized_keys

# Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files
IgnoreRhosts yes
# For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh_known_hosts
RhostsRSAAuthentication no
# similar for protocol version 2
HostbasedAuthentication no
# Uncomment if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for RhostsRSAAuthentication

#IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes

# To enable empty passwords, change to yes (NOT RECOMMENDED)
PermitEmptyPasswords no

# Change to yes to enable challenge-response passwords (beware issues with
# some PAM modules and threads)
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no

# Change to no to disable tunnelled clear text passwords
#PasswordAuthentication yes

# Kerberos options
#KerberosAuthentication no
#KerberosGetAFSToken no
#KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes
#KerberosTicketCleanup yes

# GSSAPI options
#GSSAPIAuthentication no
#GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes

X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
PrintMotd no
PrintLastLog yes
TCPKeepAlive yes
#UseLogin no

#MaxStartups 10:30:60
#Banner /etc/issue.net

# Allow client to pass locale environment variables
AcceptEnv LANG LC_*

Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server

# Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing,
# Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing,
# and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will
# be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication and
# PasswordAuthentication.  Depending on your PAM configuration,
# PAM authentication via ChallengeResponseAuthentication may bypass
# the setting of "PermitRootLogin without-password".
# If you just want the PAM account and session checks to run without
# PAM authentication, then enable this but set PasswordAuthentication
# and ChallengeResponseAuthentication to 'no'.
UsePAM yes

AllowUsers user

file permissions:

---

.ssh directory permission on the server example.com

drwx------ 2 user user      4096 2012-07-26 13:35 .ssh


permissions on the files of the .ssh file 

-rw------- 1 user user  398 2012-07-26 13:35 authorized_keys
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 1428 2012-07-25 18:55 known_hosts
--------------------------------------------------------------------


pemissions in the files ~/.ssh and ~/.ssh/ files workstation 

drwx------+ 1 Admin  None     0 Jul  9 17:05 .ssh

-rw-------  1 admin None 1679 Jul  9 17:05 id_rsa
-rw-r--r--  1 admin None  398 Jul  9 17:05 id_rsa.pub
-rw-r--r--  1 admin None  383 Jul 26 13:35 known_hosts

Answer 1

Theoretical

I feel like I need to clarify some things that you may or may not understand about how SSH works:

In the context of SSH, Passwordless can refer to two things:

• Authenticating over SSH without supplying a password over the wire; i.e., using public key authentication
• Authenticating over SSH without supplying a password over the wire, and without using a password to protect the decryption of your private key

So there are three possible modes:

1. Authenticate by directly supplying a password. No public/private keys are used.
2. Authenticate by public/private keypair, but supply a password on your client machine to decrypt the private key and make it usable. This is done using ssh-agent. The private key decryption password is cached so that it is only supplied once for the duration of your login session; after that, the password will be saved in the ssh-agent.
3. Authenticate by public/private keypair, but the keypair is not password-protected, so the user does not supply a password at all.

The second mode is the most secure. You can test this mode by creating a password-protected keypair, make sure ssh-agent is set up properly (as it is on modern Linux distros), and it should "just work": when you first login to an SSH server that uses your private key, you get a prompt to enter the password. Every time after that, until you logout, it "just works" with no prompt.

Practical

debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Offering RSA public key: /home/admin/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password
debug1: Trying private key: /home/admin/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: Trying private key: /home/admin/.ssh/id_ecdsa
debug1: Next authentication method: password

Try the following:

• Rename the known_hosts file to something else (like known_hosts.bak) on both the client and server

• On the server, logged in as user, try

  chmod go-w ~/
  chmod 700 ~/.ssh
  chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

• On the client, logged in as admin, try

  chmod 700 ~/
  chmod 700 ~/.ssh
  chmod 400 ~/.ssh/id_rsa chmod 400 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
  #if the admin user doesn't have a group, create it and make it the admin user's primary group
  chown -R admin:admin ~/.ssh

• Make darn sure that the contents of the client's ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub (note, the .pub is critical) is in the server's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on one line (with no linebreaks -- but don't confuse text editor wrapping and linebreaks; use cat ~/.ssh/authorized_keys to ensure you're viewing the file without wrapping), and that the contents of the client's ~/.ssh/id_rsa is not anywhere on the server, or indeed, anywhere but that one place on the client. Note: If you have accidentally put ~/.ssh/id_rsa (the private key) on the server, I highly recommend that you delete your keypair and create a new one, starting over from scratch. You'll have to put the new id_rsa.pub into the authorized_keys file.

• ???

• Profit!