>Any suggestions on getting ssh to allow logins without a password? I.e. >host-based authentification. I've tried the standard stuff but it >didn't work. Any similar experiences? (This is needed for a cluster.) Just forget about .rhosts and the like, passwords cans be caught on the network. The solution : generate a pair of keys local with ssh-keygen -t dsa (CAUTION : specify a non empty passphrase (ako password associated with the pair)) copy the contents of .ssh/id_dsa.pub into .ssh/authorized_keys2 in the distant (or even localhost) machines' users home directories (CAUTION : one such key per line, remove end of lines if you copy/paste from a terminal window) launch ssh-agent locally (will ask you the passphrase) do ssh-add to add your identity to the local agent Any subsequent ssh, scp or sftp command will work unattended, ssh-agent doing all the negociation work for you. Very useful will cron tasks, too !