content: making-it-easy-to-ssh-into-a-remote-server-addendum
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| author | category | content | published_date | slug | summary | title | url |
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| ryan | technology | I recently got a new raspberry pi (yes, I might have a problem) and wanted to be able to ssh into it without having to remember the IP or password. Luckily I wrote [this helpful post](/making-it-easy-to-ssh-into-a-remote-server.html) several months ago. While it go me most of the way there, I did run into a slight issue. ## First Issue The issue was that I had a typo for the command to generate a key. I had: `ssh-keyken -t rsa` Which should have been: `ssh-keygen -t rsa` When I copied and pasted the original command the terminal said there was no such command. 🤦‍♂️ ## Second Issue Once that go cleared up I went through the steps and was able to get everything set up. Or so I thought. On attempting to ssh into my new pi I was greeted with a password prompt. WTF? The first thing I did was to check to see what keys were in my \~/.ssh folder. Sure enough there were a couple of them in there. ls ~/.ssh id_rsa id_rsa.github id_rsa.github.pub id_rsa.pub known_hosts read_only_key read_only_key.pub Next, I interrogated the help command for `ssh-copy-id` to see what flags were available. Usage: /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id [-h|-?|-f|-n] [-i [identity_file]] [-p port] [[-o <ssh -o options>] ...] [user@]hostname -f: force mode -- copy keys without trying to check if they are already installed -n: dry run -- no keys are actually copied -h|-?: print this help I figured let’s try the `-n` flag and get the output from that. Doing so gave me ryan@Ryans-MBP:~/Desktop$ ssh-copy-id -n pi@newpi /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: Source of key(s) to be installed: "/Users/ryan/.ssh/id_rsa.github.pub" /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: attempting to log in with the new key(s), to filter out any that are already installed /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: WARNING: All keys were skipped because they already exist on the remote system. (if you think this is a mistake, you may want to use -f option) OK … why is it sending the GitHub key? That’s a different problem for a different time. I see another flag available is the `-i` which will allow me to specify which key I want to send. Aha! OK, now all that I need to do is use the following command to test the output: ssh-copy-id -n -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub pi@newpi And sure enough it’s sending the correct key /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: Source of key(s) to be installed: "/Users/ryan/.ssh/id_rsa.pub" /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: attempting to log in with the new key(s), to filter out any that are already installed /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: WARNING: All keys were skipped because they already exist on the remote system. (if you think this is a mistake, you may want to use -f option) Remove the `-n` flag to send it for real ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub pi@newpi And try to ssh in again ssh pi@newpi Success! I wanted to write this up for 2 reasons: 1. So I can refer back to it if I ever need to. This blog is mostly for me to write down technical things that I do so I can remember them later on 2. This is the first time I’ve run into an issue with a command like tool and simply used the help to figure out how to fix the problem and I wanted to memorialize that. It felt [forking](https://thegoodplace.fandom.com/wiki/Censored_Curse_Words) awesome to do that. Footnote: Yes … calling my new raspberry pi `newpi` in my hosts file is dumb. Yes, when I get my next new Raspberry Pi I will be wondering what to call it. YEs, I am going to try and remember to make the change before it happens so that I don’t end up with the next Pi being called `newnewpi` and the one after that being `newnewnewpi` | 2019-03-25 | making-it-easy-to-ssh-into-a-remote-server-addendum | I recently got a new raspberry pi (yes, I might have a problem) and wanted to be able to ssh into it without having to remember the IP or password. Luckily I wrote [this helpful post](/making-it-easy-to-ssh-into-a-remote-server.html) several months ago. While it go me most of the way there, I did … | Making it easy to ssh into a remote server: Addendum | https://www.ryancheley.com/2019/03/25/making-it-easy-to-ssh-into-a-remote-server-addendum/ |