openssh unix dev - Jan 2006 - why not option to automatically add pub key?

One of the annoyances of ssh is the need to transfer the public key from
client machine to server machine, and append to authorized_keys.  Although
it's simple to do, it's annoying to have to do this manually.  Why
can't
this be automated?  ssh offers to add new machine to known_hosts.  Why
doesn't it offer to add the public key to authorized_keys?

hi Neal--

On January 11, ndbecker2 at gmail.com said:

 > One of the annoyances of ssh is the need to transfer the public key from
 > client machine to server machine, and append to authorized_keys.  Although
 > it's simple to do, it's annoying to have to do this manually.  Why
can't
 > this be automated?  ssh offers to add new machine to known_hosts.  Why
 > doesn't it offer to add the public key to authorized_keys?

the debian distribution (at least) of openssh contains ssh-copy-id,
which is a simple shell script to automate that operation.

you can find the script in CVS here:

 http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~cjwatson/cvsweb/openssh/contrib/ssh-copy-id

i think it's also in the openssh CVS, under contrib.

Since i run with ControlMaster/ControlPath set up as autoask, when
i've connected to a machine for the first time, i just run ssh-copy-id
locally and it sets everything up for me over the existing connection
for future use.

hth,

	--dkg

On Wed, Jan 11, 2006 at 09:52:05AM -0500, Neal Becker
wrote:
> Why can't this be automated?
Of course it can. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea.

OpenSSH doesn't want to dictate (and thereby limit) your access
control policy. Access control administration is left to the
administrator, which I think makes a lot of sense.


//Peter