We will be generating the keys on the client computer:

MacBook-Pro:~ adem$ ssh-keygen -t dsa
Generating public/private dsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/adem/.ssh/id_dsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): abcd
Enter same passphrase again: abcd

The ssh-keygen programme has just created two DSA (-t dsa specifies this) keys on your Mac. id_dsa is the private key and id_dsa.pub is the public key. You need to copy the public key, ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub from the client to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2 on the server using scp:

scp [source] [user]@[remote.host]:[destination] [-P port]

For example:

Mac Mini:~ adem$ scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub adem@192.168.1.2:~/.ssh/authorized_keys2 -P 2222

Important: Only ever copy the public key to other machines. The private key, as the name suggests must be kept secret, so only store it on computers you know are secure.

If you have several clients you want to connect to the server, you’ll need to first scp id_dsa.pub across to your server, before merging it into authorized_keys2:

scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub adem@192.168.1.2:~/id_rsa.pub

Server:

cat ~/id_rsa.pub > ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2
rm ~/id_rsa.pub