ILRI Research Computing

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====== Configuring Key-Based SSH Authentication ======

As of 2023 we no longer allow password authentication to the ILRI, Nairobi HPC. All users must use SSH keys instead. This is due to the increasingly hostile nature of the public Internet, where malicious bots constantly barrage publicly accessible servers with login attempts, hoping to get lucky.

SSH keys are a robust, more secure alternative to logging in with an account password or passphrase. Technically speaking, SSH public key authentication relies on asymmetric cryptographic algorithms that generate a pair of separate keys (a key pair), one "private" and the other "public". You keep the private key a secret and store it on the computer you use to connect to the remote system.

More information about SSH keys:

  * [[https://kb.iu.edu/d/aews|Set up SSH public key authentication to connect to a remote system]] (University of Indiana)

===== macOS or GNU/Linux =====

==== Checking for Existing SSH Keys ====
First you should check to see if you have an existing SSH key on your local system:

<code>$ ls -la ~/.ssh</code>

Check the directory listing to see if you already have a public SSH key. By default, the filenames of supported public keys for GitHub are one of the following:

  * ''id_rsa.pub''
  * ''id_ecdsa.pub''
  * ''id_ed25519.pub'' (preferred)

<note>If the directory is empty or does not exist, then you will need to proceed to creating a new key. More information about [[https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/connecting-to-github-with-ssh/checking-for-existing-ssh-keys|checking for existing keys]].</note>

==== Generating a New SSH Key ====

===== Microsoft Windows =====

==== MobaXterm ====

==== putty ====