HOW-TO: use keys with dropbear for a more secure box (using PuTTy)
'ello
first of all you should have dropbear installed...
create a public and private key (I used PuTTYgen) just press 'Generate'
save the private key somewhere, you will use this file each time you login,
create a dir in your home directory on your router:
mkdir .ssh
cd .ssh
next you need to copy the public key (with ctrl+c) from puttygen, the big string in the textfield (all of it).
in .ssh/ type:
echo ssh-rsa AAAAB3N......8nq97Rcl5D= rsa-key-20061230 > authorized_keys
(echo 'what you copied from puttygen here without the quotes' > authorized_keys
your string will be longer, I've just omited a large part.
this will create a 'authorized_keys' file.
now add '-s' to your rc.local and your init.d file so they read '/opt/sbin/dropbear -s' this will disable ordinary password logins.
Reboot your router.
Now in Putty, go to settings->Connection->SSH->Auth here browse to your private key you saved with puttygen.
now when you login, you need to have the key and the passphrase for that key (you specified passphrase in puttygen)
you now efficiently stopped any kind of bruteforce attacks :)
/regards
Henrik