To generate a key pair with the PuTTY key generator, simply run puttygen.exe and click the Generate button in the window that appears. You will be asked to move the mouse and press keys to improve the random number generation at the heart of SSH security. To create a key pair using a third-party tool. Generate a key pair with a third-party tool of your choice. Save the public key to a local file. For example, /.ssh/my-key-pair.pub (Linux) or C:keysmy-key-pair.pub (Windows). The file name extension for this file is not important. To create a key pair using a third-party tool. Generate a key pair with a third-party tool of your choice. Save the public key to a local file. For example, /.ssh/my-key-pair.pub (Linux) or C: keys my-key-pair.pub (Windows). The file name extension for this file is not important.
Generate RSA keys with SSH by using PuTTYgen
One effective way of securing SSH access to your cloud server is to usea public-private key pair. This means that a public key is placed onthe server and a private key is placed on your local workstation.Using a key pair makes it impossible for someone to log in by using justa password, as long as you set up SSH to deny password-basedauthentication.
Type in the passphrase and confirm it. The passphrase is used to protect your key. You will be asked for it when you connect via SSH. Click 'Save private key' to save your private key. Click 'Save public key' to save your public key. For more information on how to load the key and connect via SSH using PuTTY, please check this tutorial. Apr 19, 2019 How to generate SSH keys in OpenSSH for Windows 10. These devices and Linux-based clients use a public/private key pair to verify the user attempting to connect to the client and perform.
This article provides steps for generating RSA keys by using PuTTYgen onWindows for secure SSH authentication with OpenSSH.
Generate keys
In Windows, use PuTTYgen to generate your public and private keys.
- If needed, download PuTTYgen from the PuTTY download page.(PuTTYgen might have been installed previously with PuTTY or WinSCP.)
- Launch the program, and then click the Generate button.The program generates the keys for you.
- Enter a unique key passphrase in the Key passphrase andConfirm passphrase fields.For additional information about using passphrases,see Log in with a SSH Private Key on Windows.
- Save the public and private keys by clicking the Save public keyand Save private key buttons.
- From the Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys filefield at the top of the window, copy all the text (starting with ssh-rsa)to your clipboard by pressing Ctrl-C.You need this key available on your clipboard to paste eitherinto the public key tool in the Control Panel or directly into theauthorized keys on your cloud server.
Use the key pair
You can use the RSA key pair in the following ways.
Specify your SSH key when creating a new cloud server
When you create a cloud server, you can assign a public key from the list of keys.If your key is not already in the list, you may add it, and then assign it.
Add a new public key to the list
- Under Advanced Options on the Create Server page, click Manage SSHKeys.
- Select public key for the cloud server from the SSH Keys listand click Add Public Key.
- Enter the key name, select the region, and paste the entire publickey into the Public Key field. Then click Add Public Key.
- Go back to the Create Server page, and confirm that your key is listedin the SSH Key list.
Assign a public key
- Under Advanced Options on the Create Server page, select the publickey you want to use from the SSH key drop-down menu.
- When you are done specifying the all the other details for the server,click Create Server.
Assign your SSH Key to an existing cloud server
To make use of your newly generated RSA key pair, you must tell PuTTY touse it when connecting to your cloud server.
-
To edit the file (or create it), run the following command on the cloud server:
-
Paste the text onto its own line in the file.You must have the key available in your clipboard to paste it. The key and itsassociated text (the ssh-rsa identified at the start and the comment at the end)must be on one line in the file. If the text is word-wrapped onto multiple linesan error might occur when connecting.
-
If you created the authorized_keys file, change its permissionsafter you’re done editing it by running the following command:
-
Open PuTTY, and go to the SSH > Auth section.
-
Browse to the location of the key file, and load the private key.
-
Go to the Session page, and save the session. This saves the configurationso that PuTTY uses the key every time that you connect to your cloudserver.
After you save your session, your key is loaded automatically when youconnect to your server.
Related article
Experience what Rackspace has to offer.
©2020 Rackspace US, Inc.
Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
-->
Most authentication in Windows environments is done with a username-password pair.This works well for systems that share a common domain.When working across domains, such as between on-premise and cloud-hosted systems, it becomes more difficult. Windows 7 professional service pack 1 key generator.
By comparison, Linux environments commonly use public-key/private-key pairs to drive authentication.OpenSSH includes tools to help support this, specifically:
- ssh-keygen for generating secure keys
- ssh-agent and ssh-add for securely storing private keys
- scp and sftp to securely copy public key files during initial use of a server
This document provides an overview of how to use these tools on Windows to begin using key authentication with SSH.If you are unfamiliar with SSH key management, we strongly recommend you review NIST document IR 7966 titled 'Security of Interactive and Automated Access Management Using Secure Shell (SSH).'
About key pairs
Key pairs refer to the public and private key files that are used by certain authentication protocols.
SSH public-key authentication uses asymmetric cryptographic algorithms to generate two key files – one 'private' and the other 'public'. The private key files are the equivalent of a password, and should protected under all circumstances. If someone acquires your private key, they can log in as you to any SSH server you have access to. The public key is what is placed on the SSH server, and may be shared without compromising the private key.
Elliptic curve cryptography key generation algorithm. When using key authentication with an SSH server, the SSH server and client compare the public key for username provided against the private key. If the public key cannot be validated against the client-side private key, authentication fails.
Multi-factor authentication may be implemented with key pairs by requiring that a passphrase be supplied when the key pair is generated (see key generation below).During authentication the user is prompted for the passphrase, which is used along with the presence of the private key on the SSH client to authenticate the user.
Host key generation
Public keys have specific ACL requirements that, on Windows, equate to only allowing access to administrators and System.To make this easier,
- The OpenSSHUtils PowerShell module has been created to set the key ACLs properly, and should be installed on the server
- On first use of sshd, the key pair for the host will be automatically generated. If ssh-agent is running, the keys will be automatically added to the local store.
To make key authentication easy with an SSH server, run the following commands from an elevated PowerShell prompt:
Hot random key. RandomKeygen is a free mobile-friendly tool that offers randomly generated keys and passwords you can use to secure any application, service or device. KEY RandomKeygen - The Secure Password & Keygen Generator.
Since there is no user associated with the sshd service, the host keys are stored under ProgramDatassh.
User key generation
To use key-based authentication, you first need to generate some public/private key pairs for your client.From PowerShell or cmd, use ssh-keygen to generate some key files.
This should display something like the following (where 'username' is replaced by your user name)
You can hit Enter to accept the default, or specify a path where you'd like your keys to be generated.At this point, you'll be prompted to use a passphrase to encrypt your private key files.The passphrase works with the key file to provide 2-factor authentication.For this example, we are leaving the passphrase empty.
Windows Ssh Public Key
Now you have a public/private ED25519 key pair(the .pub files are public keys and the rest are private keys):
Remember that private key files are the equivalent of a password should be protected the same way you protect your password.To help with that, use ssh-agent to securely store the private keys within a Windows security context, associated with your Windows login.To do that, start the ssh-agent service as Administrator and use ssh-add to store the private key.
After completing these steps, whenever a private key is needed for authentication from this client, ssh-agent will automatically retrieve the local private key and pass it to your SSH client.
Note
It is strongly recommended that you back up your private key to a secure location,then delete it from the local system, after adding it to ssh-agent.The private key cannot be retrieved from the agent.If you lose access to the private key, you would have to create a new key pairand update the public key on all systems you interact with.
Deploying the public key
To use the user key that was created above, the public key needs to be placed on the server into a text file called authorized_keys under usersusername.ssh.The OpenSSH tools include scp, which is a secure file-transfer utility, to help with this.
Generate Ssh Public Private Key Pair Windows 10
To move the contents of your public key (~.sshid_ed25519.pub) into a text file called authorized_keys in ~.ssh on your server/host.
This example uses the Repair-AuthorizedKeyPermissions function in the OpenSSHUtils module which was previously installed on the host in the instructions above.
Create Ssh Key Pair
These steps complete the configuration required to use key-based authentication with SSH on Windows.After this, the user can connect to the sshd host from any client that has the private key.