Exercise: Copy a File To Remote Machine, And Verify

Topics

• SSH: Secure Copy (scp)

• View your local password database’s metadata, and compute its SHA256 fingerprint.

  $ ls -l /etc/passwd
  -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 2746 Mar  3 14:12 /etc/passwd
  $ sha256sum /etc/passwd
  72c18232434d0551af75f964ea66ae5d9271faba895f40a929fb17f19d7ab44c  /etc/passwd
  

• Use the scp command to copy that file to the remote machine - into your remote home directory under the name ~/my-local-passwd

• Use the ssh command non-interactively to verify the SHA256 checksum on the remote side:

  • You do not login to the remote machine

  • You do not type the sha256sum command an a remote login shell

  • Rather, you use the local ssh command to automate that process and call sha256sum remotely for you.

• Compare the remote fingerprint with the local fingerprint

• Did the copy succeed without information loss?