Misc. Linux Sysadmin tips

Got around to updating the home office machines, and thought it would be a good idea to keep some recurring tips handy:



Disabling SSH login for root user

1.  Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config
2. Set PermitRootLogin to no (Remove # if present)
3. Add AllowUsers  
4. Save, then restart sshd: 
   $ service sshd restart

Setup Passwordless SSH:

1. Create SSH keypair with options, such as:
   $ ssh-keygen -b 5120
2. chmod created keypair: 
   $ chmod 600
3. SCP the public key to target machine.
4. On target machine:
   $ mkdir ~/.ssh$ chmod 700 ~/.ssh
5. If ~/.ssh/authorized_keys doesn't exist:
    move the public key from home folder to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys then
   $ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
6. If it does exist, then append the public key to the authorized_keys: 
   $ cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, then delete the public key.
7. Test by SSHing to the target machine

Editing Hostnames

1. Edit /etc/sysconfig/network.  modify HOSTNAME= to FQDN
2. Edit /etc/hosts.  Add IP address with FQDN and shortname
3. Restart network services:
   $ /etc/init.d/network restart