kb95: Configuring public-key authentication for SSH based collections

The Statistics Server supports SSH authentication via public key exchange. Password authentication is always attempted first, and if that fails then key based authentication is tried.

Longitude installs keys under Longitude/ss/config/sshKeys. The appropriate public key needs to be configured on the monitored computer before key based authentication will succeed.

The instructions for configuring the keys will vary based on the version of SSH and the operating system of the agent. In general, the following steps can be used for setting up Public Key Authentication to monitor a Unix/Linux server:

1. The public key goes on the monitored Unix/Linux computer, in the .ssh/authorized_keys file in the home directory for the account being used in the ssh connection.
2. The private key goes on Longitude agent, in Longitude\ss\config\sshkeys\{filename}, where {filename} is either OpenSshRsa1024 or OpenSshDsa1024, depending on whether an RSA or DSA key is being used.
3. If you use the keys provided with Longitude, copy the text from the Longitude\ss\config\sshKeys\{keyname}.pub file and write it into the authorized_keys file for the appropriate account.
4. If you generate your own key, and you set up a password for the key, the password is entered in the field for the password for the account.