Secure way to login wihtout entering username and password Using Pageant - Redhat Linux RHCE

    Most of situations we will forgot the password, if you have more servers to manage. So writing password somewhere in the flat file is a very risky process and security thread. Here is an simple way of login to your server's without typing the Username and password always. 

Pageant is a PuTTY authentication agent. It holds your private keys in memory so that you can use them whenever you are connecting to a server. It eliminates the need to:

• Explicitly specify the relevant key to each Linux user account, if you use more than one account to log into a server
• Type a key's passphrase each time you log into your user account; and your keys should be passphrase protected since having an unprotected key is as good as hiding your password under your keyboard!

Prerequisites:

Install your Putty along with the pageant.
You should have private key .PPK file

To install the pageant follow the below process....

Download the Putty installer


Then run the installer






Click Next to continue with the installation


Select the installation process and click Next


click Next to continue

Select the .PPK files with Pageant and PuTTYgen option then click Next


Once Again Verify your options what you have selected and installing then click on Install
Click on Finish to complete the Installation. Installation is successful ...

Now Generate the private Key.

open the PuTTYgen






Now click on Generate button yo generate your private and public key
 
 After generating the Key save private key by clicking on the save private key button
copy the public key from the above box



Now Login to your Server which server you want to set the passwordless authentication
 
 then create .ssh directory and authorized_keys file in your home path

after creating the file paste the public key to it, then set the permission strictly "do not accessed by others"

~]$mkdir .ssh
~]$chmod 700 .ssh
~]$vi authorized_keys
then paste the key content
~]$chmod 600 authorized_keys

Setup Private key to Pageant

Open your Pageant from program files



When you click on the Pageant it will appear in task-bar
 

Add .PPK file to it


it will ask you for the passphrase key Enter your passphrase then click OK


If you want add more keys of more servers you can do that by clicking on Add key

Your almost there change the putty settings as mentioned below.



Check the Tick mark to "Attempt authentication using Pageant"



Now Enter your server Hostname / IP Address it will automatically login using private key



Enjoy.........

Please provide your valuable comments.............