[NTLUG:Discuss] Using scp....

[Stuart Johnston]

Douglas King wrote:
> I had someone set up my Linux machines to use SCP as the "backup" 
> feature every night.  However, I have had to rebuild a couple of the 
> machines, and need to set up SCP again.  When the "backup" machine logs 
> in, it's asking for a password.  There is supposed to be a way to "fix" 
> the passwords in the respective machines so that when it gets to that 
> stage...it logs an and backs up the designated directories.  My QUESTION 
> is....what is the process in "fixing" the password stuff, where it 
> doesn't stall there?

I assume you are talking about using ssh keys.  I've never actually done 
this before so hopefully someone else can give you better instructions 
but basically you need to use the 'ssh-keygen' command to generate your 
public and private keys.  Then you copy the public key onto the host 
that you are connecting to.  Try the ssh-keygen manpage for help.

Here are some pages that look like they might be helpful:
http://wiki.kernel-panic.org/index.php?ssh-keygen
http://www.wlug.org.nz/SSHKeys


Also, you may want to consider using rsync to do your backups instead of 
scp.  It will only copy the files that have changed, can use compression 
and is just generally better suited for such things. 
http://rsync.samba.org/


Stuart Johnston