Looking for a one step solution to appending my SSH public key to a server's authorized_keys?

Question

To get my public key onto a server I normal copy the contents of my public key, then SSH into the server, then I run vi .ssh/authorized_keys, then paste my key into the file and save.

There has got to be an easier, one step way using SCP or something like that. Of course I want to append my key to authorized_keys, not overwrite it and the permissions of authorized_keys needs to remain at 600

Answer 1

You can also try this one liner:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh user@remote-system 'umask 077; cat >>.ssh/authorized_keys'

Answer 2

I would suggest looking into the ssh-copy-id tool, for example:

ssh-copy-id -i .ssh/id_rsa remoteuser@remote.host

More on:

• ssh-copy-id man page: http://linux.die.net/man/1/ssh-copy-id
• OpenSSH Speed Tips and Tricks: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tips/6592/1/

Answer 3

ssh-copy-id is a script that will do exactly what you want: http://linux.die.net/man/1/ssh-copy-id

Answer 4

you could also get copymyid from here. Its a command line application designed to be a replacement for ssh-copy-id on osx. The app appends the specified pub file to your server.