[Pc_Support] Cigwin rsync and passwords -- Oops!

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Mon, 2006-05-15 at 00:17 -0400, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> Check your logs.  It's likely that you're getting a password prompt
> because of security issues.  I.e., SSH doesn't like it when ~/.ssh/*
> files are world readable and/or writable.
> If you setup SSH on Windows, be sure to:  
> A.  Make sure your home directory (and ~/.ssh) is on NTFS, and
> B.  Lock it down, security wise

Ooops!  I read your post too quickly.  I ass-u-me'd you had already
setup "Public Key Authentication" and were having issues.  But I now
re-read ...

   "Could anyone familiar with this tool tell me how I could
    pass ssh the password on the command line so I could run
    rsync from a batch file and the scheduler?"

_Never_ do this (actually, I don't think you can).  Use "Public Key
Authentication" instead.

In a nutshell, you:  

1.  Generate a public / private keypair with no passphrase
E.g., id_dsa or id_rsa (private key) and id_dsa.pub or id_rsa.pub
(public key)

2.  Put the public key on the _server_
E.g., typically append the key to the file authorized_keys

3.  Put the private key on the _client_

There are many HOWTOs on this, including Cygwin-specific ones.

Again, if you run into issues, it might be a permission issue.  SSH
doesn't like to use Public Key Authentication when the files are world
readable and/or writable.  So lock down your ~/.ssh directory.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith            Professional, technical annoyance
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org      http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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