Hi there,

I have most of Smart Sync setup already, but I'm having trouble with the SFTP authentication. I would like to authenticate using my SSH Private Key.

I already know to go edit the SSH Defaults, but I can't figure out how to have PHPEd automatically use my private key to log into the remote server.

I tried listing my private key in the "Host Keys" field and it doesn't seem to work.

There's no log output so its very hard for me to debug.

Any help is appreciated.

it sounds like you want public key authentication. It's available with PhpED, easily:
Click on the Keys tab, right click on SSH defaults->New->SSH settings. It will ask if you want it to generate new keys. Press yes, assign some name to the settings in the left tree, enable "Public Key (ssh2)" and disable all the other settings. Then open file names in the "publick identity files", grab path and copy id_rsa1.pub or id_dsa1.pub (if you prefer dsa or rsa respectively) to your server. If it runs openssh daemon, you'll need to add key from id_*sa1.pub (it's just one line) to ~/.ssh/known_hosts

Don't forget to leave password empty and make sure that username is not empty and corresponds to the username where you copied the key (see home directory is mentioned above).

Also, don't forget to check server's settings (sshd_config in /etc/ or /etc/ssh/). It should enable public key authentication (PubkeyAuthentication yes).

Thanks dmitri, those instructions were perfect and worked right away.

May I suggest you place this exact info in the FAQ section? I tried looking there and it wasn't there. The PHPEd chm help file also didn't have the same easy to use instructions you just put.

I was also wondering about the following things about Smart Sync:

For Smart Upload settings what happens in the following situations:


Compare File Size:

Can I assume that the file is considered "different" and replaced with whatever is on local disk if the remote file is either smaller OR larger than the copy on the local computer?

Compare both

Does this mean BOTH situations must be met before the file is uploaded? (Eg a file is smaller or bigger, PLUS the timestamps are different)

Or does it mean when EITHER situation is satisfied the file is uploaded?

Compare Size -> you're correct. If file sizes are different, upload will happen. Same goes for download.
Compare Both -> upload will happen if datetime stamp of destination file is _older_. If it is newer it will be skipped, if datetime stamps are the same but file sizes are different, a warning will be given.

How do i make that files are just uploaded when they are more recent ?.

It is uploading everything

try Smart Upload (available in PRO version) instead of plain upload.

I have used keys generated with openSSL but had a problem in connecting with the server.

This turned out to be the requirement for using an IP address rather than a host name in the sftp connection settings.
However this made no difference when setting up an SSH terminal.

Hope this helps someone.