Using Putty To Generate Ssh Key

How to Generate SSH Keys on PuTTY SSH keys are one of the most secure SSH authentication options. It is definitely more secure than the usual SSH password authentication. Therefore, it is highly recommended to use SSH Key authentication method for connections to your servers. 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. Launch the program and click on the Load button and select your PuTTY 's key file, which normally ends with.ppk extension. Enter the key's passphrase if prompted. Details of the imported key will be displayed. Go to Conversions → Export OpenSSH key from the menu. Dec 18, 2019 In this tutorial, we will walk through how to generate SSH keys on Ubuntu 18.04 machines. We will also show you how to set up an SSH key-based authentication and connect to your remote Linux servers without entering a password. Ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 ssh-keygen -t dsa ssh-keygen -t ecdsa -b 521 ssh-keygen -t ed25519 Specifying the File Name. Normally, the tool prompts for the file in which to store the key. However, it can also be specified on the command line using the -f option. Ssh-keygen -f /tatu-key-ecdsa -t ecdsa -b 521 Copying the Public Key to.

PuTTY does not natively support the private key format for SSH keys. PuTTY provides a tool named PuTTYgen, which converts keys to the required format for PuTTY. You must convert your private key (.pem file) into this format (.ppk file) as follows in order to connect to your instance using PuTTY.

Log in to a Linux server with an SSH private key on a Windows client

Using Putty To Generate Ssh Key

This article demonstrates how to load an SSH private key into PuTTY in orderto connect to a Linux® server. You need the followingsoftware to complete this task:

  1. PuTTY: A client for managing SSH sessions
  2. PuTTYgen: A tool for managing and creating SSH key pairs

To download both tools, see Download PuTTY: latestrelease.

Note: These instructions apply to using PuTTY on the Windows® operating system.For information about using SSH private keys on Linux and OS X®operating systems, see Log in with an SSH Private Key on Linux andMac.

Save your private SSH key to a text file

As a part of your deployment, Rackspace might have provided you with an SSHprivate key for you to use to authenticate against your newly deployedLinux servers. You must save this private key to a text file. This typeof file is called a key file.

Open a text editor, paste your SSH private key, and save the file.

Your SSH private key should look similar to the key in the following image:

You need to include all of the text that appears in the image in your key file.

Load your SSH private key in PuTTY Key Generator

Use the following steps to load your SSH private key in PuTTY Key Generator:

  1. Launch PuTTY Key Generator.

  2. In the Actions section, click Load to load an existing private keyfile. Change the file type to search for to All Files.

  3. Select the key that you saved to a text file earlier and click Open.

    A confirmation displays after PuTTYgen successfully imports the private key. Click OK to dismiss the message.

  4. Enter a unique key passphrase in the Key passphrase field, then enterthe same passphrase again in the Confirm passphrase field. You areprompted for this passphrase whenever you log in to a server by using yourSSH private key.

  5. Click Save private key, then enter a file name in the Saveprivate key as dialog box to save it for use with PuTTY.

    Note: We strongly recommend that you keep the default settings.

Log in to PuTTY by using your SSH private key

Use the following steps to log in to PuTTY by using your SSH private key:

  1. Enter a name for the session and click Save.

    Note: You can use any name that you want. This example names the session based on the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the server to which the user is connecting.

  2. Click Connection > Data in the left navigation pane and set theAuto-login username to root.

  3. Click Connection > SSH > Auth in the left navigation pane andconfigure the SSH private key to use by clicking Browse under Privatekey file for authentication.

  4. Navigate to the location where you saved your SSH private key file, selectthe file, and click Open.

    The file path for the SSH private key file now displays in the Private key file for authentication field.

  5. Click Session in the left navigation pane, then click Save in theLoad, save or delete a stored session section.

  6. Click Open to begin your session with the server.

    If you saved your SSH private key with a passphrase, you’re prompted to enter that passphrase. An alert displays indicating that the server’s host is not cached. Click Yes to continue the connection.

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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. Sucuri won't generate ipa key.

The aforementioned public-key cryptosystems principally focus on secure data transmission and digital signatures.

firefox nightly download for mac 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:

  1. 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.
  2. You will see the PuTTY key generator dialog box on your screen
  3. You will find a “Generate” button in that dialog. Clicking on it will lead to generating the keys for you.
  4. Now you will need to add a unique key passphrase in the Key passphrase and Confirm passphrase field.
  5. Click on the “Save Public Key” and “Save Private Key” buttons to save your public and private keys.
  6. 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

RSA key pair generated through PuTTYgen is used in two various ways defined as below:

  1. 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.
  2. 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:

Using putty to generate ssh key for git
  1. Installation using Homebrew:
    First, install the ‘brew command line’ Once installed use the below-given command to install PuTTY:-
    sudo brew install putty
  2. 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 MacPorts
    sudo 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 –

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.

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]

Options:

Putty Generate Ssh Key Windows

  1. Keyfile – It is the name of the existing key file to read at the time of changing the current key.
  2. –t keytype – The command specifies the type of key to creating. Its acceptable values are RSA and dsa.rsa1.
  3. -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.
  4. –q – The command suppresses the message about progress at the time of key generation.
  5. -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.
  6. –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.
  7. –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.
  8. –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.
  9. -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.

Using Putty To Generate Ssh Key For Git

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.