In your Linux distribution check that the openssh-clients package is installed (normally it is by default). Open up a terminal in user mode (not root mode), you will be generating a private and public ssh key pair.
$ mkdir ~/.ssh
$ ssh-keygen -q -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa -t rsa
You will be prompted for a passphrase twice, you can enter a password or write a couple of lines from your favourite song, it is up to as you have got to remember it. In your home directory under .ssh (view hidden files) you will see two files, id_rsa (private key) and id_rsa.pub (public key). The public key is to be put within the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file on the server as one line. When you ssh to the server you will be prompted to download the server's rsa host key which will be put into your ~/.ssh directory, and then you will then be prompted for your passphrase for server entry.
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