Using Puttygen To Generate Keys

PuTTY does not natively support the private key format (.pem) generated by Amazon EC2. PuTTY has a tool named PuTTYgen, which can convert keys to the required PuTTY format (.ppk). You must convert your private key into this format (.ppk) before attempting to connect to your instance using PuTTY. May 08, 2019  Using PuTTYgen PuTTYgen is a key generator. It generates pairs of public and private keys to be used with WinSCP. PuTTYgen generates RSA, DSA, ECDSA, and Ed25519 keys.

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. https://playjar.weebly.com/home/xpadder-mac-os-x-download.

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.

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

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:
  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.

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.

PuTTYgen, part of the open source network networking client PuTTY, is a crucial generating tool to create public and private SSH keys for servers. The native file format of PuTTY is .ppk files. Additionally, the tool is used for SSH connectivity. So users can use PuTTY to connect and securely transfer data from localhost to remote system.

But to use PuTTY, the private keys must be in the native format of the application. So for example, as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a core part of the cloud-computing platform, generates Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM) file format, a user must first convert the file to .ppk file format before connecting to Linux Instance (virtual server on Amazon Web Services) from a Windows machine.

The EC2 allows users to lease virtual systems so that they can run their applications on it.

However if one plans to use PuTTY’s SSH client to connect, then they are first required to convert the .pem file to .ppk using PuTTYgen and then use PuTTY application to join local and remote hosts.

  • 4 Converting .Pem to .Ppk on Unix or Linux

What Is the .Pem File Format?

Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM) file extension is a format that is mainly used to transmit data, certificates, email and cryptographic keys privately. The PEM file format is a tamperproof and secure way of storing and transferring data.

As a ‘.pem file’ can store multiple types of data; it represents data with appropriate suffix. While the most common is .pem suffix, others include .key for private keys and .cer or .crt for certificates. The PEM file format encodes it with the binary-to-text encoding scheme – base64 so that it represents binary data in ASCII string.

Using Puttygen To Generate Keys 2017

Even though the technological advancements have led to a more secure alternative to PEM container, it is still leveraged to store public and private certificates, root certificates and many others. /microsoft-office-professional-plus-2010-product-key-generator.html.

Unlike most file formats that are easy to convert via online conversion tools, a user requires a specific application to convert files that have .pem extensions. PuTTYgen is one such application that quickly converts f .pem files to .ppk.

Convert .Pem to .Ppk using PuTTYgen

The primary requisite is to download and install PuTTY application. As part of the networking client, PuTTYgen does not have to be downloaded separately. Users must download the latest version of the app and install the entire suite. Once installed, PuTTYgen will be ready to convert .pem files to .ppk format. We will provide detail steps to convert files on both operating systems – Windows and Unix.

Converting .Pem to .Ppk on Windows

  1. Click on Start menu> All Programs > PuTTY > PuTTYgen.
  2. The following window will present with options on the crucial a user wants to generate. Select the option ‘RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman). RSA is a public-key cryptosystem that is commonly used to transmit data securely. Users with an older version of PuTTY should select the option – ‘SSH-2 RSA.’
  3. Next, click on the option ‘Load.’ As PuTTY supports its native file format, it will only show files that have .ppk file extension. Therefore, users have to choose the ‘All Files’ option from the drop-down bar. It will display all key files included the .pem file.
  4. Now, select the .pem file that you want to convert. As aforementioned that PuTTYgen is used for SSH connectivity, so it crucial for users to select the specific file that they plan to convert and click ‘Open.’ To confirm, click on ‘OK.’
  5. In the resultant window, click on ‘Save private key’ which will convert and save the key file in PuTTY compatible format.
  6. PuTTYgen will prompt a warning of saving the key without a passphrase. Hit ‘Yes’ on it.
  7. Now, give the name to your file and PuTTYgen will automatically add .ppk file extension.

Note – Passphrases provide extra protection, but it sometimes gets annoying as each time a user copies files they have to enter the passphrase. Although, it entirely depends on the user if they wish or don’t wish to add the extra layer of protection

Once the file is converted to PuTTY compatible format, users can connect their local machine with remote servers.

Converting .Pem to .Ppk on Unix or Linux

Using Puttygen To Generate Keys Download

To convert the file on Unix is far simpler than Windows. Users are first required to install PuTTY application on their Unix machines. Once done, all a user must do is enter a one-line command. First, run the PuTTYgen command and type the below-written command:

Generate Key Using Puttygen

$ sudo puttygen pemKey.pem -o ppkKey.ppk -O private

Voila! The .pem files will quickly be converted to PuTTY native file format. Users can connect via PuTTY to remote servers from local systems using the newly created .ppk files on both Windows and Unix.

Connect Using PuTTY

Once the .pem file is converted .ppk then users can connect to remote hosts using PuTTY’s SSH client. Below are steps to launch a PuTTY session.

  1. First, open PuTTY and input the host IP address. Please note that an SSL VPN connection must be established if the connection is to with 10.X private address.
  2. Now, from the category pane, navigate to Connection and expand SSH and the Auth.
  3. Click on ‘Browse’ and select the newly converted .ppk file, that was generated using PuTTYgen.
  4. Now to commence the PuTTY session, choose the option ‘open.’

Note: If the remote and local hosts connect for the first time using PuTTY then the application will pop up a dialog box confirming the authenticity of the connection. It just provides an added layer of security, so click ‘Yes’ when it appears.

Transferring Files Using PuTTY

Interestingly, one can also use PuTTY applications another component the PuTTY Secure Copy client (PSCP) to transfer files to remote servers. The PSCP is a Secure copy protocol (SCP) client that enables secure transfer of files from localhost to remote hosts.

If users are not comfortable using the command-line tool they can choose another Graphic user interface-based SCP client. One of the notable is WinSCP – an open-source multi-protocol supportive application for Microsoft Windows.

Back to PSCP, users are required to use the private key they generated while converting the .pem file to the .ppk file.

Converting a .pem file to a .ppk using PuTTYgen may now seem simple. The above information also briefs users on using PuTTY’s SSH client to connect virtual servers with local machines.