- To generate a key pair on a Mac or Linux machine,in the terminal I'll write ssh-keygen -t rsato specify the RSA encryption algorithm type.RSA is a widely used encryption algorithm.This will start up an interactive seriesof prompts asking you where you want to store the key.In this case, I'll leave it as the default.You could rename the key if youanticipate having many different keys.I'll press enter to.
- Mar 12, 2017 Generate an SSH key on macOS (Sierra 10.12.3) If you plan on using the Oracle Cloud Services, you will need to generate some SSH Keys to enable secure access to Oracle Cloud resources from applications such as SQL Developer and eve.
- Mar 22, 2019 To generate a new Key pair, run the following commands on your home computer. Open your terminal and run the following command under your username. local$ ssh-keygen -t rsa This creates a public/private keypair of the type (-t) rsa.
- SSH client software that is installed on your Linux or macOS operating system by default. Your favorite text editor. This example uses the vim text editor. Your private key. For more information about generating a key on Linux or macOS, see Connect to a server by using SSH on Linux or Mac OS X. Log in with a private key.
- How to upload an SSH key via the DreamCompute dashboard; Connect to your DreamCompute Instance with SSH keys in Mac or Linux; How to configure passwordless login in Mac OS X and Linux; Creating and importing a Key pair using the OpenStack CLI; Creating a new Key pair in Windows.
When you generate your keys, you will use ssh-keygen to store the keys in a safe location so you can bypass the login prompt when connecting to your server. To generate SSH keys in Mac OS.
Connect to a server by using SSH on Linux or Mac OS X
This article provides steps for connecting to a cloud server froma computer running Linux® or MacOS® X by using Secure Shell (SSH).It also discusses generating an SSH key and adding a public key tothe server.
Introduction
SSH is a protocol through which you can access your cloud server and runshell commands. You can use SSH keys to identify trusted computers withoutthe need for passwords and to interact with your servers.
SSH is encrypted with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which makes it difficultfor these communications to be intercepted and read.
Note: Many of the commands in this article must be run on your localcomputer. The default commands listed are for the Linux command line orMacOS X Terminal. To make SSH connections from Windows®, you can use a clientsimilar to the free program, PuTTY.To generate keys, you can use a related program, PuTTYGen.
Log in
Using the Internet Protocol (IP) address and password for your cloud server, log in byrunning the following
ssh
command with username@ipaddress
as the argument:The system prompts you to enter the password for the account to which you’reconnecting.
Remote host identification
If you rebuilt your cloud server, you might get the following message:
One of the security features of SSH is that when you log in to a cloudserver, the remote host has its own key that identifies it. When you tryto connect, your SSH client checks the server’s key against any keysthat it has saved from previous connections to that IP address. After yourebuild a cloud server, that remote host key changes, so your computerwarns you of possibly suspicious activity.
To ensure the security of your server, you canuse the web console in the Cloud Control Panel to verify your server’s new key.If you’re confident that you aren’t being spoofed, you can skip thatstep and delete the record of the old SSH host key as follows:
On your local computer, edit the SSH
known_hosts
file and remove anylines that start with your cloud server’s IP address.Note: Use the editor of your choice, such as
nano
on Debian or theUbuntu operating systemor vi
on RPM or CENTOS servers. For simplicity, this article just uses nano
. If you prefer to use vi
,substitute vi
for nano
in the edit commands.For more on using nano
, seehttps://support.rackspace.com/how-to/modify-your-hosts-file/.If you are not using Linux or MacOS X on your local computer, thelocation of the known_hosts file might differ. Refer to your OS forinformation about the file location. PuTTY on Windows gives you theoption to replace the saved host key.
Generate a new SSH key pair
You can secure SSH access to your cloud server against brute forcepassword attacks by using a public-private key pair. A public key is placed onthe server and a matching private key is placed on your local computer. If youconfigure SSH on your server to accept only connections using keys,then no one can log in by using just a password. Connecting clientsare required to use a private key that has a public key registered onthe server. For more on security, reviewLinux server security best practices.
Use the following steps to generate an SSH key pair:
- Run the following command using your email address as a label.Substitute your email address for
[email protected]
inthe command.A message indicates that your public-private RSA key pair isbeing generated.At the prompt, press Enter to use the default location or entera file in which to save the key and press Enter.Our releases are to prove that we can! Nothing can stop us, we keep fighting for freedomdespite all the difficulties we face each day.Last but not less important is your own contribution to our cause. Sims 2 product key generator. - If you want the additional security of a password for the key pair,enter a passphraseand press Enter. If you don’t want to use a passwordwith the key pair, press Enter to continue without setting one.Your key pair is generated, and the output looks similar to the following example:
- Optionally, add your new key to the local ssh-agent file to enableSSH to find your key without the need to specify its location everytime that you connect:You can use an SSH configuration shortcut instead of the ssh-agent fileby following the instructions in the Shortcut configuration sectionlater in this article.
Add the public key to your cloud account
To make it easy to add your key to new cloud servers that you create,upload the public key to your cloud account by following these steps:
- Log in to the Cloud Control Panel.
- In the top navigation bar, click Select a Product > Rackspace Cloud.
- Select Servers > SSH Keys.
- Click Add Public Key.
- Enter a key name, such as Work Laptop, to remind you which computer this key is for.
- Select the region for which you want to store the public key. Tostore your key in multiple regions, repeat these steps foreach region. The key must reside in the same region as the server.
- Paste the contents of the id_rsa.pub file that you created intothe Public Key field. You can get the file contents by eitheropening the file in a text editor or by running the followingcommand:
- Click Add Public Key.
If you want to add the key manually, instead of by using the Control Panel, reviewLinux server security best practicesand use the following command:
Create a new server by using a stored key
When you create a new cloud server, you can add a stored key to the newserver.
- On the Create Server page, expand the Advanced Options section.
- From the SSH Key menu, select your key from the list.
- If you don’t see a stored key in the list, you can perform one of the following actions:
- Switch the region for the new server to the region where you have stored the SSH key.
- Repeat the steps in the preceding section, Add the public key to your cloud account,to add the key to the region in which you want to create the new server.
Add the key to an existing server
You can’t use the Cloud Control Panel to add a public key to anexisting server. Follow these steps to add the key manually:
- On your cloud server, create a directory named .ssh in the homefolder of the user that you connect to by using SSH.
- Create or edit the authorized_keys file and add your public key tothe list of authorized keys by using the following command:A key is all on one line, so ensure that the key isn’t broken byline breaks. You can have multiple keys in the authorized_keysfile, with one key per line.
- Set the correct permissions on the key by using the following commands:
- If you have any issues and need to fix permissions issues, run the following comand:
After you have added the public key to the authorized_keys, you can make an SSHconnection by using your key pair instead of the account password.
Shortcut configuration
Use the following instructions to set up a connection shortcut by creating a~/.ssh/config file on your local computer and adding your server and keydetails to it.
- Using a text editor, add the following text to the ~/.ssh/config file, changing thevalues to match your server information:Each of the following entries describes a feature of the server:
- Host: A shortcut name that you use to tell SSH to use thisconnection.
- HostName: The address of the server to which you connect.
- User: The name of the user account to connect to on theserver.
- IdentityFile: The location of the private key file (id_rsa).
- After you set up the config file, connect to the server by usingthe following command with your shortcut name:
Troubleshooting
If you have trouble making a new connection after you restart theserver, use the following steps to help you resolve the issue:
- The best way to troubleshoot SSH or SFTP login issues is to attempt tologin through SSH while logged into the Emergency Console and to watch the log,which typically includes the reason for a failure. If no reason is given,it could be a firewall issue. For RPM servers, run the following command to watch the log:For Debian servers, run the following command to watch the log:
- If you get a
connection timeout
error, check the IP address thatyou used to ensure that it’s correct. You might also check theserver’s iptables to ensure that it isn’t blocking the port used by SSH. - If you get a
connection refused
error, you might be trying to useSSH with the wrong port. If you changed your server to listen to aport other than 22, use the-p
option with SSH to specifythe port. - If your login is rejected, then you might have an issuewith your key. Change the
sshd
configuration to allow passwordconnections by settingPasswordAuthentication
toyes
. Restartthe server and try again. If you connect after these changes, thenthe issue is with the key and you must verify that the key is in theright place on the server. - If all else fails, review your changes and restart the SSH daemon onthe server by running the following command:If you get a message that the SSH service is unknown, run thecommand with
sshd
as the service name instead.
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PuTTYgen is a key generator tool for creating pairs of public and private SSH keys. It is one of the components of the open-source networking client PuTTY. Although originally written for Microsoft Windows operating system, it is now officially available for multiple operating systems including macOS, Linux. PuTTYgen.exe is the graphical tool on Windows OS. While on the other side, Linux OS has the only command-line version could be accessible using SSH commands.
- 1 Download PuTTYgen
- 1.1 Download PuTTYgen on Windows
- 1.2 Download PuTTYgen for Mac
- 1.3 Download PuTTYgen for Ubuntu/Linux
- 1.3.3 Types of Keys Supported on PuTTYgen
Puttygen aka Putty Key Generator
The key generation utility – PuTTYgen can create various public-key cryptosystems including Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA), Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), and Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA) keys.
The aforementioned public-key cryptosystems principally focus on secure data transmission and digital signatures.
Although PuTTYgen collects keys in its native file format i.e. .ppk files, the keys can easily be converted to any file format. For Windows, the software interface is PuTTYgen.exe, whereas, for Linux OS the command-line adaptation is available using SSH commands.
How to use PuTTYgen?
PuTTYgen is used to generate public or private key pair for creating SSH keys. Below is the complete guidance about how to generate RSA key in the Windows operating system:
- Once you install the PuTTY on your machine, you can easily run PuTTYgen. For the same, go to Windows -> Start Menu -> All Programs -> PuTTY -> PuTTYgen.
- You will see the PuTTY key generator dialog box on your screen
- You will find a “Generate” button in that dialog. Clicking on it will lead to generating the keys for you.
- Now you will need to add a unique key passphrase in the Key passphrase and Confirm passphrase field.
- Click on the “Save Public Key” and “Save Private Key” buttons to save your public and private keys.
- You will see the text starting with ssh-RSA in the Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file field which is located at the top of the window. Copy that entire text to your clipboard by pressing ctrl+c as you will require the key to paste on your clipboard in the public key tool of control panel or directly on the cloud server.
Various Ways to Use RSA Key Pair
See for necessary configuration.Keychainis a program designed to help you easily manage your SSH keys with minimal user interaction. Ssh key generation and add agent.
RSA key pair generated through PuTTYgen is used in two various ways defined as below:
- To assign while creating a new cloud server
You can choose the public key from the given list of keys at the time of creating a cloud server. If you don’t find your key in that list, then first add and then assign it. - Assign to an existing cloud server
At the time of connecting to the cloud server, first of all, you need to tell PuTTY to use it for utilizing your newly created RSA key pair.
PuTTYgen being a component of the terminal emulator PuTTY does not have to be downloaded separately, hence, comes with the PuTTY .msi installation package. You can follow the simple steps to download PuTTYgen software for your system. That is the reason why you don’t need to download PuTTYgen separately. Once you download PuTTY software, you will be able to install and run PuTTYgen easily in no time. Below is the complete instruction about how to download and install PuTTY on Windows.
Apart from that, it is also integrated into third-party programs such as WinSCP installation package. Below you can find a complete PuTTYgen download and installation guide for all operating systems.
Download PuTTYgen on Windows
To download PuTTYgen the primary requisite is to acquire the copy of PuTTY installation package. For the 64-bit operating system, one must install the 64-bit version of PuTTY, i.e. putty-64bit-<version>-installer.msi.Similarly, for the 32-bit operating system, the respective 32-bit version of PuTTY, i.e. putty-<version>-installer.msi needs to be installed.
To get PuTTY, go to PuTTY Installation Download page, whereby the complete installation package will be available with setup instructions, installation guide, and download links to all other components of PuTTY such as putty.exe, pscp.exe, psftp.exe, puttytel.exe, plink.exe, pageant.exe and putty.zip.
Following the successful download of the PuTTY installation package. It is time to install the program. Go to How to install PuTTY on Windows, whereby you will find the step by step guidance for PuTTY installation for Windows operating system.
After successfully downloading and installing PuTTY on your Windows machine, you are just 2-3 clicks away to run PuTTYgen. Follow the below-given step by step guidance to run PuTTYgen:
Run PuTTYgen on Windows
To run PuTTYgen, Go to Windows -> Start Menu -> All Programs -> PuTTY -> PuTTYgen. You will see a window for the PuTTY Key Generator on your screen.
Voila! Now you can generate public or private key pair using PuTTYgen.
Download PuTTYgen for Mac
Below is the detailed guide to download PuTTYgen on Mac operating system. Mac OS has a built-in command-line SSH client known as Terminal. To utilize it, go to Finder and then opt for Go -> utilities from the top menu. After that find the terminal which supports SSH connections to remote servers.
However, to run PuTTYgen for mac, the first one must have to install PuTTY. There are multiple ways to install PuTTY, which are Homebrew or MacPorts. Both alternatives will also install the command-line of adaptations of PuTTYgen.
Ported PuTTY for Mac
Mac has the port of PuTTY which can be installed in various ways described as below:
- Installation using Homebrew:
First, install the ‘brew command line’ Once installed use the below-given command to install PuTTY:-sudo brew install putty
- Installation using MacPorts:
First of all, one must install MacPorts and then use the command-line to install PuTTY. Here is the command to install PuTTY via MacPortssudo port install putty
Additionally, a user can also add a shortcut to the desktop by writing the following command line–cp /opt/local/bin/putty ~/Desktop/PuTTY
However, there is an alternative way to install PuTTY on Mac OS. Cyberduck is a widely used Mac OS SSH Client. Once PuTTY installed on the Mac OS, a user can convert PuTTY derived private key format to OpenSSH.
To convert the private key to standard PEM format, type the following command –
Mac Ssh Public Key
puttygen privatekey.ppk -O private-openssh -o privatekey.pem
You can also read the guide to convert .pem file to .ppk using puttygen.
Download PuTTYgen for Ubuntu/Linux
To download PuTTYgen for Ubuntu (Linux) operating system, a user to first install PuTTY. However, in some Linux distributions, the SSH key generation tool – PuTTYgen needs to be installed independently from the PuTTY client.
Generate Ssh Key Pair Mac Os 10
For example, Debian Linux requires the below-given code to install PuTTYgen:
sudo apt install putty-tools
Generate Key Pair for Authentication in Linux
To create the key pair for authentication in Linux use the below command:-
puttygen -t rsa -b 2048 -C 'user@host' -o keyfile.ppk
Various Command Line Options of PuTTY in Linux
Below are few important command line options in the Linux operating system for PuTTY:
PuTTYgen [-t keytype [-b bits] [-q] | keyfile]
[-C new-comment] [-P]
[-O output-type | -p | -l | -L]
[-o output-file]
[-C new-comment] [-P]
[-O output-type | -p | -l | -L]
[-o output-file]
Options:
- Keyfile – It is the name of the existing key file to read at the time of changing the current key.
- –t keytype – The command specifies the type of key to creating. Its acceptable values are RSA and dsa.rsa1.
- -b bits – This command specifies a total number of bit in a particular key. 1024 is the perfect size for DSA key, while 2048 or 4096 are the perfect size for RSA keys.
- –q – The command suppresses the message about progress at the time of key generation.
- -C new-comment – The command will specify the comment to describe the key. It can be used for the new and/or existing key. Key operation is not affected by a comment. However, it is used to recognize the key owner, it’s not reliable completely as any value can be applied to it.
- –P – Using the command will update the passphrase of a key. Passphrase helps to encrypt the private key. As passphrase can’t add or update on a command line, it prompts a new passphrase tool to alter it.
- –old-passphrase-file – The old password of the key remains in this file. The command is used when the key is protected by a passphrase.
- –new-passphrase file – This command prompts the new passphrase of the key. It comes in the action either at the time of generating a new key or while applying –P command to change the passphrase.
- -O output-type – This command defines what to give in output. By default, the private key is the output.
Thus, above are the prominent commands of PuTTYgen in Linux operating system. Besides that, there are many other commands available to perform various tasks from the command prompt in Linux at flank speed.
Types of Keys Supported on PuTTYgen
It is important to know the types of key PuTTYgen supports prior to using it. Below are the key types that it currently supports for SSH-2 and SSH-1 protocol:-
- SSH-1 protocol:- For SSH-1 only supports one key i.e. Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA)
- SSH-2 protocol: – SSH-2 supports multiple key types that include – Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) and Ed25519.
Generate Ssh Key Pair Mac Os Download
The above description is a detailed brief on downloading and running PuTTYgen on all major operating systems. For further details please check the Download PuTTY page.