How to use SSH without password / Complete Putty tutorial for Enigma 2

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Putty is popular ssh / telnet client and in this tutorial for Windows we will setup it in a way that you will be able to connect to your Enigma2 receiver. As a bonus you will be able to connect without using any passwords. This tutorial is working not only for Enigma2 receivers but also for other Linux-based devices.

Lets start. First download Putty application from official website and install it.

Once you install it, open it. You should get this window. My “Saved sessions” list is already populated with devices that I connect to.

It may happen that you will not be able to connect with SSH to your Enigma2 receiver. Why? Because password for it is not set! You can fix this by using telnet. You can see this option below “Connection type”. Enter IP of your receiver and select Telnet. Click “Open”. You get this window:

Type “root” and you should get promt for password. For brand new image install there is no password. Just press enter and you should be able to login to your box. Next step is to type “passwd”. With this command you will type new password in order to use ssh. Password will also work for telnet if you will use it.

You can use Putty now to connect to your receiver using SSH. Open Putty again and type IP of your receiver again. Select SSH as “Connection type”. You can already click “Open” and new windows should open with prompt for user and password. Type “root” and password you selected earlier.

I suggest that you save every device/IP you plan to use regularly. As you can see I have quite a lot of devices, three Vu+ receivers, etc. Just enter name under “Saved Sessions” and click “Save”. All settings should be now saved under desired name.

Lets continue with setting up Putty to be able to use SSH without passwords. You will now have to use another small application which you get when you install Putty. Its called PuTTYGen.

Open it. You should get this window:

You need to hover with your mouse over the blank area. While moving your mouse/cursor, key is generating. Interesting approach … When key is generated, you get this:

Click “Save private key” and save it to your hard drive. Now copy the whole key for last step which will be at the end of this tutorial – very important! Go back to Putty and click on one of the saved sessions (in my case duo1). Then click “Load”. You will see that IP appears. This means settings are loaded.

Pay attention to the left side now:

Click on “Data” under “Connection”. You will get this:

Type “root” in “Auto-login username” field. Now search for SSH on the left side and click it. It will expand. Now click “Auth”, you should get this:

Click on Browse and select key that you saved before. Now go back to “Session”:

Click your device that you are setting up and then click “Save”. Settings are now saved!

Last step

Go back to the PuTTY window and connect to your receiver with old user/pass method. Then type:

mkdir .ssh

then

cat > .ssh/authorized_keys

Now paste the text (private key) that you copied earlier in PuTTYgen app, by right-clicking inside the window. The key text should appear. Press ENTER to end the input line, and press CTRL-D to close the file. You are done. You should now be able to connect to your device without inputing username and password.