[NTLUG:Discuss] Unattended ssh/scp/sftp transfers...

[Tom Woody]

I want to use SSH to automate some regular backups and am having the worst time at it...

I have various hosts that I need to either retrieve files from, or perform backups

I know that I can use ssh,sftp,scp,etc to do these-as I have done them...but there is no way I have found to handle the authentication for the automated tasks.  

1) I have tried doing RSAAuthentication but since I need to do this in a crontab I can't use the ssh-agent to store the passphrase, and I haven't found a way to provide the passphrase as an argument to scp/ssh
2) I have tried using the SSH1 Rhosts authentication but that doesn't seem to want to work either

Anyone have any other suggestions...I am all ears!

-- 
Woody