Create a CGE Specific RSA/DSA Host Key

Procedure for creating RSA/DSA host keys to work around SSH pass phrases

At some sites, site policy may dictate the use of a pass phrase with SSH keys used for logging into a system. If a pass phrase is used when creating your SSH key, the CGE authentication mechanism will be unable to use your SSH key(s) as its host key(s), so separate CGE specific host key(s) will need to be created. To do this, follow the instructions listed below:

Create the key in the .cge directory using ssh-keygen(1) instead of creating the key in the .ssh directory:

$ mkdir -p $HOME/.cge
$ ssh-keygen
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/users/username/.ssh/id_rsa): /users/username/.cge/id_rsa
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): 
Enter same passphrase again: 
Your identification has been saved in /users/username/.cge/id_rsa.

Your public key has been saved in /users/username/.cge/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
eb:0d:10:cd:4f:4b:f1:2b:20:87:99:82:93:b5:8d:ee [MD5] username@host
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ RSA 2048]----+
|    .     .      |
|   + + *   o     |
|  + + B = o .    |
|   o . + = . .   |
|    . . S + .    |
|   .   . . .     |
|    E   o        |
|       . o       |
|        . .      |
+--[MD5]----------+
$ ls -l $HOME/.cge
total 8
-rw------- 1 username group 1679 Jan  6 11:49 id_rsa
-rw-r--r-- 1 username group  391 Jan  6 11:49 id_rsa.pub

Note: While this example shows creation of keys under $HOME/.cge, it can be used to place keys in any directory. If $HOME/.cge is not a convenient place to put the keys, follow the above procedure to generate the keys in some other (suitably protected) directory, then use the --configDir option to cge-launch or the $CGE_CONFIG_DIR_NAME environment variable to point to that directory. If it is required to use CGE specific keys that are stored on HDFS, create them in a temporary directory using this procedure, then copy them onto HDFS in the location of your choice (appropriately protecting them). Then use an HDFS URL as the value of $CGE_CONFIG_DIR_NAME or the argument to the --configDir option to the cge-launch command to select that directory instead of $HOME/.cge as the key directory.

Once this has been done, CGE will use the keys in the .cge directory instead of the ones in the .ssh directory and there should be no further problems with pass phrases.