Managing SSH Keys

1 Introduction: What is SSH?
2 What Do I Need To Do?

Introduction: What is SSH?

The Secure Shell (SSH) is a network protocol for securely transmitting information between two computers across an insecure network.

SSH uses a client-server model, in which an SSH client running on one computer contacts an SSH server running on a different computer, and the two negotiate a secure connection between the two machines. All information sent across the connection is encrypted at one end (e.g., the client) and decrypted at the other end (e.g., the server) to secure the communication. Each of the ACCESS Resource Providers (RPs) offers an SSH server; to connect to that server, you will need an SSH client on your computer. Unix-family operating systems (e.g., Linux, MacOS) and similar systems (e.g., Windows Subsystem for Linux, Windows Powershell) come with a built-in command-line interface SSH client; third party clients that offer graphical user interfaces are also available (e.g., MobaXterm, Bitvise, PuTTY).

Encrypted communication in SSH relies on two keys:

A public key, which you may openly publicize or distribute to any machine (or person) with whom you wish to communicate securely; and
A private key, which must be kept private and securely stored on your computer.

What Do I Need To Do?

Most ACCESS systems rely on SSH for logging in, transferring files, and so on. To perform any of these actions, you must complete two steps:

Click on either of the preceding links for information on how to perform that step. Both of these steps must be performed before you can connect to an ACCESS RP.

Note that you should only need to do these steps once, prior to your first use of an ACCESS resource.

Note also that SSH is a computer-to-computer protocol. If you always connect to ACCESS resources from the same computer, then you will only need to perform these steps on your one computer. But if you connect to ACCESS RPs from multiple computers (e.g., an office desktop and a home laptop), then you will need to perform the preceding steps on each of those computers. Likewise, if you replace your old computer with a new one, you will need to redo these steps on your new computer.