Hi Rob, Yup. As you said elsewhere. No way around this without some r/w space.
Rob -- Rob Echlin, B. Eng. 613-266-8311 - Ottawa, ON http://talksoftware.wordpress.com - http://picasaweb.google.com/coderoller >________________________________ > From: Robert P. J. Day <rpj...@crashcourse.ca> >To: Rob Echlin <r...@echlin.ca> >Cc: Ottawa Linux Users Group <linux@lists.oclug.on.ca> >Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 6:16:48 PM >Subject: Re: [OCLUG-Tech] how to set up "passwordless" ssh login? > >On Tue, 19 Mar 2013, Rob Echlin wrote: > >> Sounds like you could put a public key on the target. Good enough. > >> Everyone can login to a special remote-supervisor account on some >> server, to connect to the target, and that account has the private >> key. Then you don't have to get keys from everyone in advance. With >> a passwordless connection to the target, this would be an easy extra >> step. >> >> You can add their keys to the server account when you need to, then >> they have passwordless access to that account. > > i'd thought of that a while back and it seemed initially promising >but here's the rub as i explain something i'd carefully glossed over. > > imagine the unit in question is, say, a pluggable USB device running >linux. that pluggable device will be plugged into a much larger >system, *also* running linux. so the final system will, in fact, be >the *combination* of these things, and the larger system will be fully >writable. ah, you think, perfect. that should solve the problem >exactly the way you described it. > > sadly, the two units will be manufactured entirely separately. the >little units will be cheap pluggable devices which, on a moment's >notice, might fail and will be immediately replaced by another one. so >there's no permanence here. and there will be potentially *thousands* >of these systems, which would require generating key pairs for each >little unit, installing the public key on the unit, recording the >private key somewhere, and installing that on the larger system when >the combination of the two is placed in the field. > > the logistics of keeping track of all these key pairs would be a >nightmare. > >rday > >-- > >======================================================================== >Robert P. J. Day Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA > http://crashcourse.ca > >Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday >LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday >======================================================================== > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ Linux mailing list Linux@lists.oclug.on.ca http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux
