PuTTY is the world's most popular free SSH and telnet client. Downloads, tutorials, how-tos, vulnerabilities. All Mac and Linux systems include a command called ssh-keygen that will generate a new key pair. If you're using Windows, you can generate the keys on your server. Just remember to copy your keys to your laptop and delete your private key from the server after you've generated it. To generate an SSH key pair, run the command ssh-keygen.
On Windows, you can create SSH keys in many ways. This document explains how to use two SSH applications, PuTTY and Git Bash.
Joyent recommends RSA keys because the node-manta CLI programs work with RSA keys both locally and with the ssh agent. DSA keys will work only if the private key is on the same system as the CLI, and not password-protected.
PuTTY
PuTTY is an SSH client for Windows. You can use PuTTY to generate SSH keys. PuTTY is a free open-source terminal emulator that functions much like the Terminal application in macOS in a Windows environment. This section shows you how to manually generate and upload an SSH key when working with PuTTY in the Windows environment.
About PuTTY
PuTTY is an SSH client for Windows that you will use to generate your SSH keys. You can download PuTTY from www.chiark.greenend.org.uk.
When you install the PuTTY client, you also install the PuTTYgen utility. PuTTYgen is what you will use to generate your SSH key for a Windows VM.
Putty Generate Ssh Key Command Line Map
This page gives you basic information about using PuTTY and PuTTYgen to log in to your provisioned machine. For more information on PuTTY, see the PuTTY documentation |
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Generating an SSH key
To generate an SSH key with PuTTYgen, follow these steps:
- Open the PuTTYgen program.
- For Type of key to generate, select SSH-2 RSA.
- Click the Generate button.
- Move your mouse in the area below the progress bar. When the progress bar is full, PuTTYgen generates your key pair.
- Type a passphrase in the Key passphrase field. Type the same passphrase in the Confirm passphrase field. You can use a key without a passphrase, but this is not recommended.
- Click the Save private key button to save the private key. You must save the private key. You will need it to connect to your machine.
- Right-click in the text field labeled Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file and choose Select All.
- Right-click again in the same text field and choose Copy.
Importing your SSH key
Now you must import the copied SSH key to the portal.
- After you copy the SSH key to the clipboard, return to your account page.
- Choose to Import Public Key and paste your SSH key into the Public Key field.
- In the Key Name field, provide a name for the key. Note: although providing a key name is optional, it is a best practice for ease of managing multiple SSH keys.
- Add the key. It will now appear in your table of keys under SSH.
PuTTY and OpenSSH use different formats of public SSH keys. If the text you pasted in the SSH Key starts with
—— BEGIN SSH2 PUBLIC KEY
, it is in the wrong format. Be sure to follow the instructions carefully. Your key should start with ssh-rsa AAAA…
.Once you upload your SSH key to the portal, you can connect to your virtual machine from Windows through a PuTTY session.
Git Bash
The Git installation package comes with SSH. Using Git Bash, which is the Git command line tool, you can generate SSH key pairs. Git Bash has an SSH client that enables you to connect to and interact with Triton containers on Windows.
To install Git:
- (Download and initiate the Git installer](https://git-scm.com/download/win).
- When prompted, accept the default components by clicking Next.
- Choose the default text editor. If you have Notepad++ installed, select Notepad++ and click Next.
- Select to Use Git from the Windows Command Prompt and click Next.
- Select to Use OpenSSL library and click Next.
- Select to Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings and click Next.
- Select to Use MinTTY (The default terminal of mYSYS2) and click Next.
- Accept the default extra option configuration by clicking Install.
When the installation completes, you may need to restart Windows.
Launching GitBash
To open Git Bash, we recommend launching the application from the Windows command prompt:
- In Windows, press Start+R to launch the Run dialog.
- Type
C:Program FilesGitbinbash.exe
and press Enter.
Generating SSH keys
First, create the SSH directory and then generate the SSH key pair.
One assumption is that the Windows profile you are using is set up with administrative privileges. Given this, you will be creating the SSH directory at the root of your profile, for example:
- At the Git Bash command line, change into your root directory and type.
- Change into the .ssh directory
C:Usersjoetest.ssh
- To create the keys, type:
- When prompted for a password, type apassword to complete the process. When finished, the output looks similar to:
Uploading an SSH key
To upload the public SSH key to your Triton account:
- Open Triton Service portal, select Account to open the Account Summary page.
- From the SSH section, select Import Public Key.
- Enter a Key Name. Although naming a key is optional, labels are a best practice for managing multiple SSH keys.
- Add your public SSH key.
When Triton finishes the adding or uploading process, the public SSH key appears in the list of SSH keys.
What are my next steps?
- Adding SSH keys to agent.
- Set up the Triton CLI and CloudAPI on Windows.
- Set up the Triton CLI and CloudAPI.
- Create an instance in the Triton Service Portal.
- Set up the
triton-docker
command line tool. - Visit PuTTYgen to learn more about the PuTTYgen and to seethe complete installation and usage guide.
An SSH key is a form of authentication in the SSH protocol. It is similar to a password, but allows for authentication without entering in a password or any manual input. SSH keys generally speaking are more secure, and convenient than password authentication.
Command Line
If you currently have access to SSH on your server, you can generate SSH keys on the command line using the
ssh-keygen
utility which is installed by default on our servers. Run it on your server with no options, or arguments to generate a 2048-bit RSA key pair (which is plenty secure).You will be prompted to select a file for the key pair. The default directory for SSH keys is
~/.ssh
with the private key named id_rsa
and the public key named id_rsa.pub
. By using the default file names, the SSH client will be able to automatically locate the keys during authentication so it is strongly recommended to not change them. You can use the default by pressing the Enter key.If
/home/USER/.ssh/id_rsa
or a key of the name you chose already exists, you will be prompted to overwrite the keys. If you do overwrite the existing keys, you will not be able to use them to authenticate anymore.After you have selected the file for the key pair, you be will be prompted to enter a passphrase to encrypt private key file. Encrypting the private key with a passphrase is optional, but it will improve security the keys. If you enter a passphrase you will have to provide each it time you use the key. You can press the Enter key to not use a passphrase; we strongly recommend the use of a passphrase with SSH keys.
A public and private key will now be generated.
WHM
You can generate SSH key pairs for
root
in WHM >> Home Security Center >> Manage root's SSH Keys. Click Generate a New Key to get started.
There are several fields on this page: Key Name, Key Password, Key Type, and Key Size.
The default Key Name is
id_rsa
. Keys are generated in /root/.ssh/
so the default key name would create a private key in /root/.ssh/id_rsa
, and a public key in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
. Using the default name will allow SSH clients to automatically locate the keys so it is strongly recommend you use the default name (simply leave the field blank or fill it with id_rsa
).The Key Password encrypts the private key file using a password to add an extra layer of security. The password must be provided each time the key is used for authentication to decrypt the private key. The Password Strength field indicates how strong your password is. 0 indicates a very weak password, and 100 indicates a very strong password. Click Password Generator to have a strong password generated for you.
Key Type and Key Size are RSA and 2048 by default, and are secure enough for most purposes so these can be left alone.
Click Generate Key to generate the SSH key pair. WHM will then display the location of the key.
PuTTY
PuTTY is an open Windows SSH client. You will need to have the PuTTYgen utility installed to generate an SSH key pair. PuTTYgen is included in Windows installer on the Download PuTTY site, but you can download it separately if you installed PuTTY without its extra utilities. See Connect using Putty to a Linux Server to learn more about PuTTY.
Open PuTTYgen.
The Parameters at the bottom can be adjusted to affect how secure the key is, but the default options are plenty secure for most purposes.
If you're satisfied with the parameters, click Generate in Actions to generate the key pair.
You may be asked to 'generate some randomness by moving the mouse over the blank area' to generate the key. The randomness is used to generate your keys securely, and make it difficult to reproduce them.
Once the key is generated, you will see the public key in PuTTYgen.
The Key passphrase field sets a password used to decrypt the private the key. This field is optional, and the private key will not be encrypted if it is omitted.Using a passphrase increases the security of your SSH keys, and we strongly recommend setting one.
Be sure to save both the public and private keys on your local machine so they can be used by PuTTY for authentication in the future by clicking the Save public key and Save private key buttons.
If you don't use a passphrase, it will prompt you to confirm before allowing you to save the private key. The private key will be saved as a
.ppk
file. The public key isn't given an extension by default, but .pub
is a common extension for public key files. It can be saved as a .txt
file as well as the public key file only stores the public key in plain text.Command Line
If you currently have access to SSH on your server, you can upload the key over the command line.
Retrieve the contents of the public key. If the key was created in the default location, this can be done by outputting the contents of
~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
.The output will look similar to the following:
Open the (and create if it doesn't exist)
~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file using a text editor such as nano
, pico
, or vim
.If you had to create the
~/.ssh/
directory, or the authorized_keys
file, you need to verify the permissions are correct, or you won't be able to login.Paste the public key at the bottom of the file, and then save and close the file.
Alternatively, you can append the public key to
~/.ssh/authorized_keys
with a single command.You can use the
cat
command if the public key is stored in a file.If the public key is not stored as a file on the server, you can use the
echo
command.Be sure to include the entire public key in quotes after
echo
.Once the public key is added to the
authorized_keys
file, you should be able to login using your SSH keys.WHM
You can import an existing SSH key for
root
in WHM >> Home Security Center >> Manage root's SSH Keys. Click Import Key.
The next page has a few fields to fill in.
You need to name the SSH key in the Choose a name for this key field. The default key name is
id_rsa
. Using the default name will allow SSH clients to automatically locate the keys so it is strongly recommend you use the default name (simply leave the field blank or fill it with id_rsa
).If you are importing a PPK (PuTTYgen key) file, enter its password (if applicable) in the Private key passphrase text box.
Paste the public key into the appropriate box, but do not paste the private key into the box; private keys should always remain on the servers that generated them.
Click Import.
WHM will display the name of the keys imported, and you should now be able to authenticate over SSH using the key.
The default name for SSH key pairs is
id_rsa
, and that name will allow an SSH client to locate the key automatically. When an SSH key pair doesn't use the default name, you will need to specify the name of key used.