Adding SSH Access on a Standard ITS Linux VM

Purpose

The below are directions for how to allow someone new to access an existing, standard, ITS-provisioned Linux server.  All directions assume the person who is performing the operations has full sudo on the server.

Create User Account

# Replace xxxx with the person's URI username, in all lowercase, e.g. jsmith
sudo useradd xxxx

Install User's Public Key

# Replace xxxx with above username

# Create .ssh directory and set permissions
sudo mkdir -p /home/xxxx/.ssh
sudo chmod 700 /home/xxxx/.ssh

# Add the public key directly to authorized_keys
echo "<public ssh key goes here>" | sudo tee -a /home/xxxx/.ssh/authorized_keys

# Set proper ownership and permissions
sudo chown xxxx:xxxx /home/xxxx/.ssh/authorized_keys
sudo chmod 600 /home/xxxx/.ssh/authorized_keys