Using Puttygen To Generate Keys

On Windows, you can create SSH keys in many ways. This document explains how to use two SSH applications, PuTTY and Git Bash.

You have learned how to generate PuTTY SSH Keys using PuTTYgen. This will make your connection to the server a lot more secure and convenient as you will not need to fill in the password each time. We recommend using this way of SSH authentication at all times and disable password authentication for good to completely secure your server. Converting.Pem to.Ppk on Windows. Click on Start menu All Programs PuTTY PuTTYgen. The following window will present with options on the crucial a user wants to generate. Select the option ‘RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman). Next, click on the option ‘Load.’.

Jul 19, 2013 PuTTYgen is what you will use to generate your SSH keys for use in PuTTY. To start, all you need to do is download the exectuable files (.exe) and save them on the computer that you'll use to connect to your VPS, e.g. On the desktop. Jan 12, 2015  This tutorial shows you how to quickly and easily create a pair of SSH Keys using PuTTYgen, one tool in the open source PuTTY suite. You can find the written tutorial here.

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

Generate SSH Key using PuTTYgen. With PuTTYgen you can generate SSH key pairs (public and private key) that are used by PuTTY to connect to your server from a Windows client. The private key will be stored on your local machine, while the public key has to be uploaded in your dashboard.

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.

Generate
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

Generating an SSH key

Putty Generate Key

To generate an SSH key with PuTTYgen, follow these steps:

  1. Open the PuTTYgen program.
  2. For Type of key to generate, select SSH-2 RSA.
  3. Click the Generate button.
  4. Move your mouse in the area below the progress bar. When the progress bar is full, PuTTYgen generates your key pair.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Right-click in the text field labeled Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file and choose Select All.
  8. 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.

  1. After you copy the SSH key to the clipboard, return to your account page.
  2. Choose to Import Public Key and paste your SSH key into the Public Key field.
  3. 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.
  4. 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:

  1. (Download and initiate the Git installer](https://git-scm.com/download/win).
  2. When prompted, accept the default components by clicking Next.
  3. Choose the default text editor. If you have Notepad++ installed, select Notepad++ and click Next.
  4. Select to Use Git from the Windows Command Prompt and click Next.
  5. Select to Use OpenSSL library and click Next.
  6. Select to Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings and click Next.
  7. Select to Use MinTTY (The default terminal of mYSYS2) and click Next.
  8. 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:

  1. In Windows, press Start+R to launch the Run dialog.
  2. 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:

  1. At the Git Bash command line, change into your root directory and type.
  1. Change into the .ssh directory C:Usersjoetest.ssh

  2. To create the keys, type:

Using Puttygen To Generate Keys Free

  1. 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:

  1. Open Triton Service portal, select Account to open the Account Summary page.
  2. From the SSH section, select Import Public Key.
  3. Enter a Key Name. Although naming a key is optional, labels are a best practice for managing multiple SSH keys.
  4. Add your public SSH key.
Using Puttygen To Generate Keys

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.

Several tools exist to generate SSH public/private key pairs. The following sections show how to generate an SSH key pair on UNIX, UNIX-like and Windows platforms.

Generating an SSH Key Pair on UNIX and UNIX-Like Platforms Using the ssh-keygen Utility

UNIX and UNIX-like platforms (including Solaris and Linux) include the ssh-keygen utility to generate SSH key pairs.

To generate an SSH key pair on UNIX and UNIX-like platforms using the ssh-keygen utility:
  1. Navigate to your home directory:
  2. Run the ssh-keygen utility, providing as filename your choice of file name for the private key:

    The ssh-keygen utility prompts you for a passphrase for the private key.

  3. Enter a passphrase for the private key, or press Enter to create a private key without a passphrase:

    Note:

    While a passphrase is not required, you should specify one as a security measure to protect the private key from unauthorized use. When you specify a passphrase, a user must enter the passphrase every time the private key is used.

    The ssh-keygen utility prompts you to enter the passphrase again.

  4. Enter the passphrase again, or press Enter again to continue creating a private key without a passphrase:
  5. The ssh-keygen utility displays a message indicating that the private key has been saved as filename and the public key has been saved as filename.pub. It also displays information about the key fingerprint and randomart image.

Generating an SSH Key Pair on Windows Using the PuTTYgen Program

The PuTTYgen program is part of PuTTY, an open source networking client for the Windows platform.

To generate an SSH key pair on Windows using the PuTTYgen program:
  1. Download and install PuTTY or PuTTYgen.

    To download PuTTY or PuTTYgen, go to http://www.putty.org/ and click the You can download PuTTY here link.

  2. Run the PuTTYgen program.
  3. Set the Type of key to generate option to SSH-2 RSA.
  4. In the Number of bits in a generated key box, enter 2048.
  5. Click Generate to generate a public/private key pair.

    As the key is being generated, move the mouse around the blank area as directed.

  6. (Optional) Enter a passphrase for the private key in the Key passphrase box and reenter it in the Confirm passphrase box.

    Note:

    While a passphrase is not required, you should specify one as a security measure to protect the private key from unauthorized use. When you specify a passphrase, a user must enter the passphrase every time the private key is used.

  7. Click Save private key to save the private key to a file. To adhere to file-naming conventions, you should give the private key file an extension of .ppk (PuTTY private key).

    Note:

    The .ppk file extension indicates that the private key is in PuTTY's proprietary format. You must use a key of this format when using PuTTY as your SSH client. It cannot be used with other SSH client tools. Refer to the PuTTY documentation to convert a private key in this format to a different format.
  8. Select all of the characters in the Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file box.

    Make sure you select all the characters, not just the ones you can see in the narrow window. If a scroll bar is next to the characters, you aren't seeing all the characters.

  9. Right-click somewhere in the selected text and select Copy from the menu.
  10. Open a text editor and paste the characters, just as you copied them. Start at the first character in the text editor, and do not insert any line breaks.
  11. Save the text file in the same folder where you saved the private key, using the .pub extension to indicate that the file contains a public key.
  12. If you or others are going to use an SSH client that requires the OpenSSH format for private keys (such as the ssh utility on Linux), export the private key:
    1. On the Conversions menu, choose Export OpenSSH key.
    2. Save the private key in OpenSSH format in the same folder where you saved the private key in .ppk format, using an extension such as .openssh to indicate the file's content.