** Using WeBWorK **

interim update:

A few subsequent experiments seem to show that public-key authentication is merely an alternative method --- it does not disable authentication via a password.


E.g., changing the key-pair in steps (1-2) did not prevent (3)
1)  moving  .ssh  to  ssh
2)  repeating the  ssh-keygen -t rsa  command (which, with probability > 0.999, generates new keys even if passphrase is same)
3)  having  ssh me@host  be successful after supplying my password (I presume password was required because public-key info did not match).
4)  restoring the original .ssh folder also restored public-key authentication


Notes:
a)  don't let techy-stuff influence you to simplify your passwords
b)  remember that only a login is being authenticated by using your public-key  ---  expect to be required to supply your password for a "sudo ..." command after logging-in (but now with a fully encrypted session).
c)  I need to read more of the O'Reilly book about SSH.