[CentOS] Rsync, SSH and authorized_keys problem

Tue Jun 16 20:59:27 UTC 2009
Stewart Williams <lists at pinkyboots.co.uk>

Hi,

I'm trying to backup from one machine to the other (automatically via
cron) using rsync and ssh password-less public key authentication.

I having been trying to set this up following an article in a Linux
magazine[1] by only allowing the specific rsync command to run on the
remote box.

I am using the following rsync command:

$ rsync -avz -e "ssh -i ~/.ssh/backup-key" /backup
stewart at name.of.remote.server:/backup

This runs, connects using keys asking for no password and completes
successfully until I add the above command to my authorized_keys file on
the remote box:

command="rsync -avz -e "ssh -i ~/.ssh/backup-key" /backup
stewart at name.of.remote.server:/backup" ssh-dss ... key ...

The client then says it cannot find the key, so the connection fails.

Is it because it's trying to find the private key in the ~/.ssh
directory on the remote box?

Is the article wrong?

Or am I doing something wrong?

Should I use the $SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND variable?

Regards,
Stewart Williams






[1]
http://www.linuxformat.com/pdfs/download.php?PDF=LXF105.tut_backup.pdf