Local user management for the iRMC S4
4.3.3
SSHv2 public key authentication for iRMC S4 users
In addition to authentication by means of a user name and password, the iRMC S4 also supports SSHv2-based public key authentication using pairs of public and private keys for local users. To implement SSHv2 public key authentication, the SSHv2 key of an iRMC user is uploaded to the iRMC S4 and the iRMC user uses their private key with the program PuTTY or the OpenSSH client program ssh, for example.
The iRMC supports the following types of public keys:
– SSH DSS (minimum requirement)
– SSH RSA (recommended)
The public SSHv2 keys that you upload to the iRMC can be available either in
RFC4716 format or in OpenSSH format (see page 78 ).
Public key authentication
In outline, public key authentication of a user on the iRMC happens as follows:
The user who wishes to log into the iRMC creates the key pair:
– The private key is read-protected and remains on the user's computer.
– The user (or administrator) uploads the public key to the iRMC.
If the configuration allows this, the user can now log into the iRMC extremely securely and without the need to enter a password. The user is only responsible for keeping their private key secret.
The following steps are necessary to set up private key authentication. They are described in the subsequent sections:
1. Creating the public and private SSHv2 keys with the program PuTTYgen or
ssh-keygen
and saving them in separate files (see
page 67
).
2. Loading the public SSHv2 key onto the iRMC from a file
(see
page 71
).
3. Configuring the program PuTTY or ssh for SSHv2 access to the iRMC (see
page 73
).
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iRMC
