This article contains information about accessing a NetScaler appliance by using the SSH keys.

Requirements

To complete the procedure in this article, the NetScaler appliance must have an SSH client capable of public key authentication, such as OpenSSH or PuTTY.

Background

You can configure the NetScaler appliance for an SSH access by using the key authentication. However you still need to use the user name.

Instructions

To access a NetScaler appliance by using the SSH keys, complete the following procedure:

1. Create a public-private key pair.

2. Run the following command to copy the id_rsa.pub to the /root/.ssh directory of the remote host:
   # scp id_rsa.pub nsroot@<Remote_Host_IP_Address>:/root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

3. Log on to the remote host.

4. Change to the /root/.ssh directory.

5. Run the following commands to append the public key of the client to the authorized_keys file:
   # shell
   # cd /root/.ssh
   # cat id_rsa.pub >> authorized_keys
   # chmod 0644 authorized_keys
   # rm id_rsa.pub

6. To ensure that the changes persist even after restarting the appliance, complete the following procedure:

   1. Copy the authorized_keys file from the /root/.ssh directory to the /nsconfig/ssh/ directory.

   2. In the rc.netscaler file, append the following entries:
      mkdir /root/.ssh
      cp /nsconfig/ssh/authorized_keys /root/.ssh/