This will show you how to log into SSH without having to use a password.
From the machine you want to be able ssh without a password from
ssh-keygen -t dsa
Default password, and empty passphrase.
From the same machine
cat ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub | ssh user@remote “cat – >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys”
ssh user@remote
You should now be in without having to be asked a password. There are some obvious security implications here; nothing you should have to worry about if you have a strong password and good permissions on /home/user.
This is very useful for automated backups using scp/rsync.
scp -r -p ~/Important user@remote:~/backups/`date +%F`
The above command will backup /home/user/Important to /home/user/backups/2008-01-18
I’ll deal with rsync in a different post; lots of nifty stuff there. 😉