Chris Allen wrote:
Setting up ssh to give secure connections without needing to enter a password is very easy, but *absurdly* poorly documented, even in the SSH O'reilly book. Let me know if you need any more help - I've spent many frustrating hours battling with this program!
It's actually very easy, at least with openssh (package name ssh) on Debian. You run ssh-keygen once, then add the contents of $HOME/.ssh/identity.pub on your local host to $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys on the remote host. Type ssh-add on the local host and enter your passphrase to authorise your key for the current X session, then you can ssh without a password.
That's the basic situation for most people. Things are similar for ssh 2, although I don't think the Debian Potato version supports the newer protocol. If you don't run under X, you'll need to start your own ssh-agent and set the required variables, but the manual pages aren't bad.