Generate Private Key From Public Key Putty

| 14-05-2021
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How do I convert my Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Privacy Enhanced Mail (.pem) file to a PuTTY Private Key (.ppk) file? Or, convert a .ppk file to a .pem file?

Short Description

PuTTY doesn't natively support the private key format (.pem) generated by Amazon EC2. You must convert your private key into a .ppk file before you can connect to your instance using PuTTY. You can use the PuTTYgen tool for this conversion. This tool, available for both Windows and Unix operating system, can convert keys.

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Windows - install PuTTYgen

Most Windows operating systems have PuTTY installed. If your system doesn't, download and install PuTTYgen.

Windows - convert a .pem file to a .ppk file

Start PuTTYgen, and then convert the .pem file to a .ppk file. For detailed steps, see Convert Your Private Key Using PuTTYgen.

Generating a Secure Shell (SSH) Public/Private Key Pair 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. How to Generate SSH Public/Private Keys on Windows By Alexandru Andrei – Posted on Sep 17, 2019 Sep 17, 2019 in Windows If you ever managed a Linux server from Windows, you probably used PuTTY or at least heard about it. Generate online private and public key for ssh, putty, github, bitbucket Save both of keys on your computer (text file, dropbox, evernote etc)!!! The generated keys are RANDOM and CAN'T be restored.

Windows - convert a .ppk file to a .pem file

  1. Start PuTTYgen. For Actions, choose Load, and then navigate to your .ppk file.
  2. Choose the .ppk file, and then choose Open.
  3. (Optional) For Key passphrase, enter a passphrase. For Confirm passphrase, re-enter your passphrase.
    Note: Although a passphrase isn't required, you should specify one as a security measure to protect the private key from unauthorized use. Using a passphrase makes automation difficult, because human intervention is needed to log in to an instance or to copy files to an instance.
  4. From the menu at the top of the PuTTY Key Generator, choose Conversions, Export OpenSSH Key.
    Note: If you didn't enter a passphrase, you receive a PuTTYgen warning. Choose Yes.
  5. Name the file and add the .pem extension.
  6. Choose Save.

Unix or Linux - install PuTTY

Install PuTTY, if it's not already on your system.

Important: A PuTTY package is provided by the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) repository. You must enable the EPEL repository before you install PuTTY.

To install PuTTY, run one of the following commands:

RPM-based

Dpkg-based

Unix or Linux - convert a .pem file to a .ppk file

On the instance shell, run the puttygen command to convert your .pem file to a .ppk file:

Unix or Linux - convert a .ppk file to a .pem file

Run the puttygen command to convert a .ppk file into a .pem file:

Related Information

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Daniel shows you how to convert a private key to and from .ppk and .pem formats (3:48)
Putty

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.

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.

  1. If needed, download PuTTYgen from the PuTTY download page.(PuTTYgen might have been installed previously with PuTTY or WinSCP.)
  2. Launch the program, and then click the Generate button.The program generates the keys for you.
  3. 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.
  4. Save the public and private keys by clicking the Save public keyand Save private key buttons.
  5. 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.

Generate Public Key Windows

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

  1. Under Advanced Options on the Create Server page, click Manage SSHKeys.
  2. Select public key for the cloud server from the SSH Keys listand click Add Public Key.
  3. Enter the key name, select the region, and paste the entire publickey into the Public Key field. Then click Add Public Key.
  4. Go back to the Create Server page, and confirm that your key is listedin the SSH Key list.

Generate Private Key From Public Key Putty Free

Assign a public key

  1. Under Advanced Options on the Create Server page, select the publickey you want to use from the SSH key drop-down menu.
  2. 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.

  1. To edit the file (or create it), run the following command on the cloud server:

  2. 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.

  3. If you created the authorized_keys file, change its permissionsafter you’re done editing it by running the following command:

  4. Open PuTTY, and go to the SSH > Auth section.

  5. Browse to the location of the key file, and load the private key.

  6. 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.

Generate Private Key From Public Key Putty For Windows

After you save your session, your key is loaded automatically when youconnect to your server.

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