Passwordless SSH

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These instructions assume 2 ESXi servers: ESXi0 & ESXi1

Both of these servers have a datastore named Admin for Administrative stuff and a Folder named Utilities for storing useful things.

ESXi to ESXi

Source: How to SSH between ESXi 6.0U2 hosts without providing a password

The following 2 sections are basically lists of Copy-Pasta commands for each server.

ESXi0

  • mkdir /vmfs/volumes/Admin/Utilities/ssl
  • mkdir /vmfs/volumes/Admin/Utilities/ssl/ESXi1
  • mkdir /vmfs/volumes/Admin/Utilities/ssl/ESXi1/keys
  • mkdir /.ssh
  • cd /.ssh
  • /usr/lib/vmware/openssh/bin/ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
  • ls
  • cat id_rsa.pub | ssh root@ESXi1 'cat >> /etc/ssh/keys-root/authorized_keys'
  • cd /etc/ssh/keys-root/
  • ls -l
  • cp /.ssh/* /vmfs/volumes/Admin/Utilities/ssl/ESXi1/keys

ESXi1

  • mkdir /vmfs/volumes/Admin/Utilities/ssl
  • mkdir /vmfs/volumes/Admin/Utilities/ssl/ESXi0
  • mkdir /vmfs/volumes/Admin/Utilities/ssl/ESXi0/keys
  • mkdir /.ssh
  • cd /.ssh
  • /usr/lib/vmware/openssh/bin/ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
  • ls
  • cat id_rsa.pub | ssh root@ESXi0 'cat >> /etc/ssh/keys-root/authorized_keys'
  • cd /etc/ssh/keys-root/
  • ls -l
  • cp /.ssh/* /vmfs/volumes/Admin/Utilities/ssl/ESXi0/keys

On Both Servers

  • vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
  • (Ensure the following items are in the file)
PermitRootLogin yes
UsePAM yes
# only use PAM challenge-response (keyboard-interactive)
PasswordAuthentication no 
  • /etc/init.d/SSH restart

At this point, you should be able to SSH from one to the other without needing to enter a password.

ESXi to Linux

Linux to ESXi