SSH is required between the Ansible Control Node (Ubuntu 16.02) and the Dell PowerSwitch switches for running the Dell Networking Ansible Roles. Dell PowerSwitch supports SSH version 2.0 with RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) encryption for authentication. RSA-SSH authentication lets you establish an SSH session without entering a password. This authentication method allows you to use an Ansible script to automatically launch an SSH session to a Dell PowerSwitch, eliminating the potential security vulnerability of including a password in the script.
Using RSA SSH authentication requires creating a public key or private key pair on the host where the SSH session is launched. You configure the host's public key on each of the Dell PowerSwitches, and the host's private key helps in authenticating the login to the switch.
To configure the RSA SSH authentication on both the Ansible Control Node and networking device, perform the following steps: