FreeBSD 10 ssh key authenication

 

# ssh-keygen -t rsa  (uses default 2048, want higher?  use -b 4096)

Enter a passphrase.

cat id_rsa.pub >> .ssh/authorized_keys

ee /etc/ssh/sshd_config  

Comment out (#) the line ChallengeResponseAuthenication and change it to "no" (without the quotes)

service sshd restart

Copy the id_rsa (private key) to your laptop/desktop or whatever computers you use.   drop it into the .ssh directory of your system directory.  Have Windows?  point to it in Putty.  I believe most distro's will read the id_rsa as a default key file so you may need to change its name if you SSH to other servers.  for example...I have a server named web01....so I would ssh user@web01 -i web01.priv  <--- is my private key.