MacOS SFTP Public Key Authentication

Question

We can enable SFTP on our MacOS by going into System Preferences -> Sharing -> Remote Login

This works fine and we can easily connect to our local server by sftp localhost and then provide the password of the current user.

Now, some professional FTP Servers, allow you to connect to the FTP server by using a SSH key. (so you don't have to enter username/password).

I wonder if the SFTP server on MacOS can also be configured to authenticate users using keys rather than raw username/password.

Mind the difference in naming FTP and SFTP. They are completely different protocols! — Jakuje, Commented May 1, 2017 at 19:33

Knows Not Much · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-01 18:57:42Z

1

Oh I found the answer. we just have to add the public key to the authorized_keys file

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh localhost "cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"

answered May 1, 2017 at 18:57

Knows Not Much

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