Generating SSH key pairs for the TOVA server (for Cygwin, MinGW, Linux and Mac OS X)

We use something called "public key authentication" to access TOVA. That means you have a public key on dev.tovacompany.com, and a private key on your local machine. When you want to log in, you open up your private key file using a passphrase and dev.tovacompany.com uses your public key to verify it really is you. Using public key encryption, we never have passwords going over the net which is very very good. Note that your public key file is public - go ahead and give it away! - but your private key is very, very private - KEEP IT SECURE!.

Check versions and generate your key pair

1. Open a terminal.
2. Type ssh -V and you should get the OpenSSH_5.1 (or greater) version.
3. type ls -la. You should see a .ssh folder. If you don't, type mkdir .ssh and chmod 755 .ssh.
4. Type cd .ssh
5. Type ssh-keygen
6. Hit 'Enter' to choose the default filename.
7. Please choose a nice strong passphrase. Yay, security!
8. Type ls -la. Your permissions for id_rsa should be -rw------. If it's not, type chmod 600 id_rsa.

What you have

• id_rsa is your private key. PROTECT this file! DO NOT give it out!
• id_rsa.pub is your public key. You can give this out freely.

What to do next

1. Type cp id_rsa.pub .. to copy your public key out of the hidden .ssh folder.
2. Email the TOVA sysadmins (at the address tova-admin@tovacompany.com) with:
   • Your preferred login name on the server.
   • The public key you just generated. DON'T send us your private key, JUST your public key.

Then what?

1. After we make you a user account and add your public key to it, you'll be able to use ssh and git.
2. You'll probably want to make the following SSH configuration file if you haven't already: in .ssh, create the file config and paste this content in:

Host *
User = <username>

Host = dev.tova
        Hostname = dev.tovacompany.com