Generate the key
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048 -v
and when asked to enter file in which to save the key, type my-certificate and when asked to enter passphrase, press Enter (empty passphrase) and confirm by Enter.
This will generate my-certificate and my-certificate.pub files in the current folder
rename the my-certificate to my-certificate.pem
mv my-certificate my-certificate.pem
Upload the public certificate to to server:
ssh-copy-id -i ~/my-certificate.pub username@ip
this will ask you for the password to copy the public key file contents to /home/username/.ssh/authorized_keys
Test the connection
you can test the connection by running the command
sudo ssh -i my-certificate.pem username@ip
Replace the username and ip as per your configuration
References
- http://www.beginninglinux.com/home/server-administration/openssh-keys-certificates-authentication-pem-pub-crt