Greg Freemyer wrote:
I don't know as much about this as I should, but ...
Doesn't ssh store your private key in plaintext under ~/.ssh
That is using keys is only more secure than a password if the keys are maintained securely. Ssh does not do that (does it?). I don't know about tools like putty etc.
No, it is not stored in plain text. There are two parts to the key. One is the private part, id_rsa, that is stored in your .ssh directory and the other, public part is stored on any server you wish to access in a file called authorized_keys. Both keys are long strings of what appear to be random characters, but they are generated by ssh-keygen to be mathematically related. Only the private part can be used to unlock the public. Here is the public part of one of the keys I use. The private part is much longer. ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAACAQCl0D+JWAKcaue2s1eO0ZHHbLH6l33VrhzqW03cJ/Gg6idtO5Xn94MOv0DnIYuoXJUJA6apqxHRn9U e8rJgjIcFUcGRHGSEndXnXVMapYtWiHfXOfqixQ9YAZTPMdoi1MQEbI+UsgMzDZJhEtrMEgI+GKDxqWdTgZw3OmR1jzVixcKX+LAd6nip2XSMhB2QCW dLNGpIL/iHLX2ZnyILRJpd/zv5WNglYJqMEnaukGHwzwSRH33ytrf0ustyygE6OMYj5+0r0qc8LFaxa119l5FiJMN8KBzzb8AjZKNqWOIeiAGg7xd0O hEIVpS6lut6sqVuJ0adG5mkYBBPDGzrlpbT//6mJ2GauLZKxjrHn9Nc8+d0oLQDkPznjxPkxMSZ+NAVxNcAkWMc86Y7gPv3DyVYB0Ib89v3HxQYi+bY mC9aS22w8bp3O+397B90flnoPRaRQoKJqZb7BVt3PZW/5pCzoFM9znXrZAMt5TEZZQ4gWxZjF3AE8B6ukCfS9OxrdMO9ggC86Jc083aXQg8QfJRGe8z jjvJZ2jcYd/Z5g7w9gjBDJENNWwjjpwbltSZgXbAOEUtgsYfCMshMpWRlEzVH4dMCqS2numPPtbHtjLVuvPZjvWldirhgx1L9PsKXfX26OvRDayA6NO 9IP6tlB6F9e4uuYJNq+LtEda3w== After the == is the user & host name of the computer the public part came from . Here's some info on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ssh-keygen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org