SSH Using Public Key Cryptography

Now we are familiar with how to SSH into a remote system using Putty. In this post I will explain how to do it more securely, by using public key cryptography.(Continuation from my post on SSH Tunneling)


Creating the public, private key pair using puttygen
Open puttygen, click Generate, move your mouse over the space to make the process quicker

Now add a passphrase and save your private key and public key using the buttons below.

Now open up the public key and copy it. You should paste it to backtrack in the folder, /user/.ssh/authentication_keys. If the folder does not exist, create it.
The rest is the same. Goto my post on SSH if you have any doubts.

Changing default SSH port number
You can change the default port number, 22 if it is blocked. Go to /etc/sshd_config on Backtrack i.e, your SSH Server and edit the port number.
You will have to change the port number that you do port forwarding also, on your router.