Configure SSH Aliases

Tutorial to connect your server with ssh alias

This tutorial show you how to ssh to your server without rememering the server’s ip

ssh your_server

1. ssh-keygen

• Create an ssh private/public keypair.

  Here I named my key personal. Do replace yours.

• For passwordless experience, let passphrase be empty.

cd $HOME/.ssh
ssh-keygen -t rsa

2. Copy public key to server

You can manully copy the public key or use the command for that

2.1. Manually copy

• Print and copy your public key

cat ~/.ssh/personal.pub

On your server, pass the public key to the end of $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys

2.2. Use ssh-copy-id

• Copy the public key to server
• My server ip is 192.168.1.111. Do replace with yours.

ssh-copy-id -i personal root@192.168.1.111

• Chmod server’s ssh files permission for security (optinal)

chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
service ssh restart

• Try login by password

ssh 'root@192.168.1.111'

Hura! Now we can connect to server through ssh. Next, let’s create an alias for the server.

3. SSH Alias

• From your local machine, add these line to the end of $HOME/.ssh/config

Host hp
        HostName 192.168.1.111
        User root
        IdentityFile ~/.ssh/personal

• Replace hp, 192.168.1.111, root, ~/.ssh/personal with your alias, ip, server user and the private key path

cd $HOME/.ssh
vi config

4. Test

Well done, you can ssh to your server using alias now!