Black Box Value-Line and Advanced Console Servers SDT Connector Public Key Authentication

To enable the distribution of pre-configured client config files, SDT Connector has an Export/Import facility:

To save a configuration.xml file (for backup or for importing into other SDT Connector clients) select File -> Export Preferences and select the location where you want to save the configuration file.

To import a configuration, select File -> Import Preferences and select the .xml configuration file to install.

6.7SDT Connector Public Key Authentication

SDT Connector can authenticate against an SSH gateway using your SSH key pair instead of requiring you to enter your password. This is known as public key authentication.

To use public key authentication with SDT Connector, first you must add the public part of your SSH key pair to your SSH gateway:

Make sure the SSH gateway allows public key authentication, this is typically the default behavior.

If you do not already have a public/private key pair for your client PC (the one running SDT Connector), generate them now using ssh-keygen, PuTTYgen or a similar tool. You may use RSA or DSA; however, leave the passphrase field blank:

-PuTTYgen: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

-OpenSSH: http://www.openssh.org/

-OpenSSH (Windows): http://sshwindows.sourceforge.net/download/

Upload the public part of your SSH key pair (this file is typically named id_rsa.pub or id_dsa.pub) to the SSH gateway, or otherwise add to .ssh/authorized keys in your home directory on the SSH gateway.

Next, add the private part of your SSH key pair (this file is typically named id_rsa or id_dsa) to SDT Connector. Click Edit -> Preferences -> Private Keys -> Add, locate the private key file, and click OK.

You do not have to add the public part of your SSH key pair, the private key calculates it.

SDT Connector will now use public key authentication when connecting through the SSH gateway

(console server). You may have to restart SDT Connector to shut down any existing tunnels that were established using password authentication.

If you have a host behind the console server that you connect to by clicking the SSH button in SDT Connector, you may also want to configure access to it for public key authentication as well. This configuration is entirely independent of SDT Connector and the SSH gateway. You must configure the SSH client that SDT Connector launches (for example, Putty, OpenSSH) and the host’s SSH server for public key authentication. Essentially what you are using is SSH over SSH, and the two SSH connections are entirely separate.

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