problem seems to be "on the other machine"
 

New information... I am able to login to my router passwordlessly, which is running a thin Linux client. In fact, I can login passwordlessly from both Macs!

So, the big problem seems to be "on the other machine" regardless of which Mac I am connecting from.

Solved!!!
 

Well, the previous poster who said the permissions of my userfolder was partially right. Actually the owner of folder /Volumes/Rachel was set to group "nobody" and that's apparently enough to raise the red flag.

It's possible that when I created the partition a few years ago that's the ownership that was given it and it just never changed.

Thanks guys, your guidance has been of astronomical value :D

Glad it is resolved... nice to see you have been up and running 2 years on the same install... Try that on windows and let me know how you make out...LOL

The info I posted on ssh with no password is solid, I have used it for mac to mac, mac to linux, etc.. without fail... If it did not work then you may still have some config issues somewhere.

I would suggest when upgrading to Tiger (if you do) that you do a clean install, you will resolve a ton of issues that have been compounding since 10.X.X.

Roger that!
 

Yeah, when 10.4 hits the shelves I'm hoping it fixes a number of problems.

After some experimentation it turns out the most liberal permissions SSH allows on your userfolder is 750. Odd that I searched Google for days and didn't find any mention of this limitation.

But I think I have a firm grasp of secure logins now :rolleyes:

Just an fyi .. You can do this in one step ...

Cat 'your public key' | ssh username@xxxx "cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys2"

You will be prompted for username's password (Since your public key is not yet in)

Yes, it does work!
 

Yes, it works!
I thought only scp prompted for a password but I guess ssh does also.