Dell PowerConnect Brocade 300 Fabric OS Administrator's Guide v7.1.0 - Page 180

6 Secure Shell protocol SSH public key authentication OpenSSH public key authentication provides password-less logins, known as SSH authentication, that uses public and private key pairs for incoming and outgoing authentication. This feature allows only one allowed-user to be configured to utilize outgoing OpenSSH public key authentication.Any admin user can perform incoming Open SSH public key authentication. Using OpenSSH RSA and DSA, the authentication protocols are based on a pair of specially generated cryptographic keys, called the private key and the public key. The advantage of using these key-based authentication systems is that in many cases, it is possible to establish secure connections without having to depend on passwords for security. RSA asynchronous algorithms are FIPS-compliant. Incoming authentication is used when the remote host needs to authenticate to the switch. Outgoing authentication is used when the switch needs to authenticate to a server or remote host, such as when running the configUpload or configDownload commands, or performing firmware download. Both password and public key authentication can coexist on the switch. Allowed-user For outgoing authentication, the default admin user must set up the allowed-user with admin permissions. By default, the admin is the configured allowed-user. While creating the key pair, the configured allowed-user can choose a passphrase with which the private key is encrypted. Then the passphrase must always be entered when authenticating to the switch. The allowed-user must have admin permissions to perform OpenSSH public key authentication, import and export keys, generate a key pair for an outgoing connection, and delete public and private keys. Configuring incoming SSH authentication 1. Log in to your remote host. 2. Generate a key pair for host-to-switch (incoming) authentication by verifying that SSH v2 is installed and working (refer to your host's documentation as necessary) by entering the following command: ssh-keygen -t dsa Example of RSA/DSA key pair generation anyuser@mymachine: ssh-keygen -t dsa Generating public/private dsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/users/anyuser/.ssh/id_dsa): Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): Enter same passphrase again: Your identification has been saved in /users/anyuser/.ssh/id_dsa. Your public key has been saved in /users/anyuser/.ssh/id_dsa.pub. The key fingerprint is: 32:9f:ae:b6:7f:7e:56:e4:b5:7a:21:f0:95:42:5c:d1 anyuser@mymachine 3. Import the public key to the switch by logging in to the switch as any user with the admin role and entering the sshUtil importpubkey command to import the key. Example of adding the public key to the switch switch:anyuser> sshutil importpubkey Enter user name for whom key is imported: aswitchuser Enter IP address:192.168.38.244 Enter remote directory:~auser/.ssh Enter public key name(must have .pub suffix):id_dsa.pub 180 Fabric OS Administrator's Guide 53-1002745-02