You are right only the password authentication mode is supported. But I am not sure what I mentioned implied the use of authorized_hosts?
Once the session key is generated and encrypted by the client (using the RSA public key of the server), the server receive it and decrypt it using its private key. Then user authentication takes place.
Please let me know directly if the use of an authorized_hosts file would work better for your environment.
It sure would, because it would allow a batch connection without having to type in a password from, very helpful for backup purposes. Of course it wouldn't be that important if ONTAP supported crontab ( a tiny hint here ).
Agreed. Authorized_hosts would be really nice. We have account generation tied to our filer for doing quota resizes after generating new accounts. Our script can either telnet on, which means transferring the password in the clear and storing it in the script somwhere (albeit encrypted) or rsh'ing on. At least we can limit the machines that are allowed to rsh to the filer but we'd feel better with ssh and a keys.