Mac: SSH Key Setup

Overview

This article provides details and specifics for how to set up a Password-Free SSH key to connect to ARCC HPC Clusters from a Mac OS computer. Each key is associated with your identity on that HPC resource, therefore you do not need to create a new key for every client you use to ssh into the HPC.

If you’d like to configure a specific SSH connection application in Mac OS specific directions may be found below:

Configuring SSH Key Authentication in CyberDuck for Mac

1 Overview
2 Creating and Managing your SSH Keys with the SSH Key Manager
3 Configure keys on your Mac

Creating and Managing your SSH Keys with the SSH Key Manager

Configure keys on your Mac

Unzip the files associated with your login.
Open your terminal ( → → → or hit keys)
Confirm you’re in your home directory by changing directories to your home with the following command: cd ~
List the contents (including hidden items) of your home directory with the following command: ls -lah
If you have a .ssh directory, it will be in this list. If you don’t have one, you will need to create one with: mkdir ~/.ssh
Unzip the newly downloaded SSH keys to your .ssh folder: unzip ~/Downloads/<username>.zip -d ~/.ssh
If your key has been configured properly, when you open a terminal and log into the cluster, you will be logged in automatically, and will not be prompted for a password (first factor), nor second factor authentication for login.

Note: If you run into permissions errors on the key files (usually errors will take the form of something similar to: Permission denied (publickey)) we recommend running the following commands then reattempting to ssh using your key files.

cd  ~/.ssh                                          # go to location in which your ssh keys are located
chmod 600 id_edsa id_edsa-cert.pub                  # sets appropriate permissions for the .ssh private keys 
ssh-add                                             # configures ssh agent for certs when not natively supported