How to give flaps a personal ssh public key for stanley.cdf

To run OLM on CDF, you need to create a personal ssh keypair, as described below.

To run OLM on CDF, you need to have an active CDF account; running DrProject does not require this. Configuration of OLM is done partially through editing files over NFS from any CDF machine under your normal CDF account, and partially through running individual commands on stanley.cdf via ssh with an authorized key. The former involves your CDF account. The latter is described in the rest of this document.

The personal ssh keypair is used to run the administrative commands. From the account from which you want to be able to run OLM administrative commands, type this:

	ssh-keygen -tdsa

and just press return when it asks you for a passphrase [footnote 1]. Then e-mail me the file ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub (it's text; you can just copy and paste it into an e-mail message [footnote 2]).

You can do this on multiple accounts if you like (e.g. both CDF and CS) and then you will be able to run the administrative commands from either one, if you mail me both of the ssh public keys. The private key (the "id_dsa" file without the ".pub") stays secret to you; don't mail that.

Then, to run administrative commands, do "ssh -t drprj@stanley.cdf.toronto.edu command", after I install your public key. Of course you can put this in an alias or shell script, etc.

Do not share your private key; that is similar to sharing your unix account password. If other people need to be able to run administrative commands too, you should tell me about them and I'll get them set up with their own key pair.

[footnote 1] If you set a passphrase (password), then you will have to type that passphrase whenever you want to invoke any administrative commands (e.g. "setup_assignment", "stopstart"). If you just press return when it asks for a passphrase, you won't have to type any passphrase when you do the ssh command. If you guard access to your accounts appropriately, this passphrase shouldn't be necessary for the stanley.cdf purpose, although it might be necessary for other purposes you use your keypair for, and it's certainly ok with me if you do use a passphrase. Most readers of this document won't need to use one.

[footnote 2] However, it has a very long line. The Apple Mail program seems to mangle this. In a pinch, mail me the file by typing, at the shell:

	mail flaps < ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub