Putty Key Generator For Mac
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  1. Putty Key Generator For Mac Os
  • 1 Download PuTTY (0.73) for Windows
    • 1.1 Download PuTTY for Windows Operating System (Released 20 July 2019)
    • 1.2 Using SSH in PuTTY (Windows)
  • 2 Download PuTTY on Linux and Installation Guide
    • 2.2 Install PuTTY on Linux
  • 3 Download PuTTY for Mac and Installation Guide
    • 3.1 PuTTY for Mac

There are many ways to install PuTTY on Mac. For SSH clients, the Cyber-Duck is widely using for Mac OS. Users can convert the PuTTY derived key format into Open SSH once PuTTY is installed on the Mac OS. The private key can be converted into the Standard PEM Format by the following command. To generate a key with PuTTY, you should: Download and start the puttygen.exe generator. In the 'Parameters' section choose SSH2 DSA and press Generate. Move your mouse randomly in the small screen in order to generate the key pairs. Enter a key comment, which will identify the key (useful when you use several SSH keys). 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. The goal of this article is to guide users to generate and load SSH keys into SourceTree using PuTTY. To generate an SSH Key, select Tools Create or Import SSH Keys. This window should pop up: 2. Click Generate, and move the mouse randomly until a key is generated: 3. A public key and a private key should appear.

A step by step guide to Download PuTTY on Windows and installing.

PuTTY, a popular terminal emulator, is an open-source, light-weight, and free SSH client. It was developed by Simon Tatham in C language. Its primary function is to connect to a computer remotely while offering the facilities of transferring files, manipulating data, etc.

It offers support to a variety of network protocols like SSH, Telnet, Serial, SCP, SFTP, etc. PuTTY also comes with a command-line tool called “psftp” which can securely transfer files between computers over an SSH connection. It is compatible to use in most of the operating systems (for both 32 bit and 64 bit).

The List of Operating Systems that support PuTTY:

  • Windows 95, 98
  • Windows ME, NT
  • Windows 2000, 2003, 2008
  • Windows XP
  • Windows Vista
  • Mac OSX

Use of PuTTY

In a multi-user operating system like Unix, the interface is generally of command-line type, just like the command prompt or MS-DOS. As such the user needs to type in the command in the command line program to get anything processed by the system.

Generally, these commands can quickly be run over a network from a different computer on a different location (client) and the response is transferred over the network to the client.

The arrangement mentioned above is made possible with the help of network protocols like SSH, Telnet, Rlogin, etc. Interestingly, users can give commands to multiple computers simultaneously.

SSH (Secure Shell) protocol is a cryptographic network protocol that allows you to access an internet server while encrypting any information sent to that server. Some of the other protocols include Telnet, Rlogin only if either you are connected to a Unix system or you have a login account on a web server (a shell account). PuTTY is one such application that enables this kind of transfer.

PuTTY supports the following protocols

  • SCP (Secure Copy)
  • SSH (Secure Shell)
  • Telnet
  • Rlogin
  • Raw socket connection.

Download PuTTY for Windows Operating System (Released 20 July 2019)

Following are the steps required to download and install the latest version of PuTTY for Windows operating system:

Choose the appropriate windows installer version (32-bit or 64-bit ) and click on it.

MSI (‘Windows Installer for putty’)
32-bit:putty-0.73-installer.msi(via FTP)(signature)
64-bit:putty-64bit-0.73-installer.msi(via FTP)(signature)
Unix source archive for putty
.tar.gz:putty-0.73.tar.gz(via FTP)(Signature)

Download Alternative Binary Files for PuTTY (Windows)


putty.exe (the SSH and Telnet client itself)
32-bit:putty.exe(via FTP)(signature)
64-bit:putty.exe(via FTP)(signature)
pscp.exe (an SCP client, i.e. command-line secure file copy)
32-bit:pscp.exe(via FTP)(signature)
64-bit:pscp.exe(via FTP)(signature)
psftp.exe (an SFTP client, i.e. general file transfer sessions much like FTP)
32-bit:psftp.exe(via FTP)(signature)
64-bit:psftp.exe(via FTP)(signature)
puttytel.exe (a Telnet-only client)
32-bit:puttytel.exe(via FTP)(signature)
64-bit:puttytel.exe(via FTP)(signature)
plink.exe (a command-line interface to the putty back ends)
32-bit:plink.exe(via FTP)(signature)
64-bit:plink.exe(via FTP)(signature)
pageant.exe (an SSH authentication agent for putty, PSCP, PSFTP, and Plink)
32-bit:pageant.exe(via FTP)(signature)
64-bit:pageant.exe(via FTP)(signature)
puttygen.exe (a RSA and DSA key generation utility)
32-bit:puttygen.exe(via FTP)(signature)
64-bit:puttygen.exe(via FTP)(signature)
putty.zip (a .ZIP archive of all the above)
32-bit:putty.zip(via FTP)(signature)
64-bit:putty.zip(via FTP)(signature)

PuTTY installer for windows will be downloaded shortly. You’ve successfully downloaded PuTTY on Windows.

Installing PuTTY on Windows

Once it is successfully downloaded on Windows than follow the following steps to install the software:

Double click on the downloaded .msi file and being with the setup process.

Click on next and then select the path for the installation.

Select the product feature you want to be installed in your system and click on install.

Click on Finish to complete the setup and close the dialog box.

Voila! You are done with the installation.

Using SSH in PuTTY (Windows)

Following the successful installation, navigate to the location folder where you have installed the application and run the .exe file.

Putty key generator for mac windows 10

1. Manage Session in PuTTY

It is the preliminary panel where you get to specify specific options to open a session.

  • The Host Name (or IP Address) bar is where a user will input the name or IP address of the server they want to connect.
  • Connection type of radio buttons allows users to choose from the kind of network they are planning to connect.
  • The Port bar is the section that is filled automatically on selecting the type of connection. However, if you choose the Raw type, the bar stays blank and requires the user to enter the port manually.
  • Upon selecting Serial as the connection type, the Host Name and Port bars will be replaced by Serial Line and Speed.

The “Load, save or delete a stored session” section is to set some connection setting without having to type all the details again when needed.

  • Once you save it, it can just select on the saved session and click on Load. The saved settings will appear on their respective boxes in the configuration panel.
  • The panel permits to modify a saved session by first loading a session, editing everything you want to change and then clicking on “save” button.
  • Users have the option to delete a session as well.

The Close Window On Exit option helps in deciding whether the PuTTY terminal will close as soon as the session ends or restarts the session on the termination.

2. What is Logging in PuTTY?

This configuration panel saved the log files of your PuTTY sessions which can be used for debugging and analysis purposes. Users can choose the type of data you want to log in this window.

3. What is Terminal in PuTTY?

The section has a variety of options to decide how the texts in the window should appear. Whether you want the text to come in the next line as soon as it reaches the right edge of the window or you want to interpret the cursor position.

4. Configure Keyboard setting in PuTTY.

With the option, users can modify the behavior of ‘backspace,’ ‘home’ and ‘end’ keys, and several other keys to coordinate with the server settings.

5. What is Bell in PuTTY?

It lets PuTTY make an alert sound as and when you want it to function.

6. Features of PuTTY

Users can choose to disable or enable some of the advanced terminal features of PuTTY like disabling cursor keys, etc. using the function.

7. Adjust the size of Window in PuTTY.

The option allows to predefine a fixed size of the PuTTY window and control the scrolling. Many other configurations can be made using this feature.

8. Change the Appearance of PuTTY

Under this panel, the appearance of the cursor, the font in the terminal window or even control the window border can be changed.

9. What is PuTTY Behaviour?

Enables to change the title of the window, control the warning window operation, etc.

10. What is Translation in PuTTY?

The “Remote Character Set” lets you select how to interpret the information received from the server.

11. What is Selection in PuTTY?

Users can change the course of copy-pasting or the actions of mouse-buttons in Unix environment by making appropriate changes in this panel.

12. How to Adjust Colours in PuTTY?

You can control the color of background as well as of the texts using this panel.

13. Configure Connection in PuTTY.

The panel has options that solve any issues when closing of connections while a window is idle. With the option, users can select between the old and new protocols.

14. Manage Data in PuTTY.

The auto-login option dismisses the need to type the username every time. It can also specify the terminal needs using this panel.

15. A proxy setting in PuTTY

Permits configuration of various types of proxies used while making the network connections.

16. What are Telnet, Rlogin, and SSH in PuTTY?

These panels allow configuration of session-related options like changing the mode for negotiation between the server and client, allowing an automated form of login on the server, etc.

The above were details about the panels and the steps to install PuTTY client on windows.

PuTTY, the open-source and free to download software, provides an easy way to access a Unix shell environment from a windows system. Unlike Unix, Windows don’t have any SSH server or client pre-installed. The network file transfer application supports many protocols including the popular SSH and Telnet clients.

PuTTY for Linux

PuTTY is not only limited to Windows OS, but it’s popular among Linux users too. The Linux version is a graphical terminal program which is not pre-installed in most of the Linux distributions.

In various enterprises, many IT projects have their development environment on a remote Linux system where Windows is used as the local system. Why PuTTY? There is already a Linux terminal in the Linux Operating System. Even then, why an SSH tool like PuTTY is preferred?

  • The interface of PuTTY makes it a favorite choice among the users since most of them are accustomed to operating the application on Windows.
  • It has the option of connecting to raw sockets and serial ports.
  • Saving various sessions and loading them in one go is the main highlighting feature of PuTTY that its users swear by since it is difficult to edit sessions whenever logging-in manually.

Install PuTTY on Linux

On a Linux-based system, PuTTY can easily be installed via terminal. Let us look at the steps of installing the server application on a Ubuntu machine.

1. As a prerequisite, it is necessary to make sure whether the universe repository of Ubuntu is enabled or not.

Type the command:

and hit enter.

2. Generally, PuTTY is already available in the repository of Ubuntu. Before starting with the installation process, update the packages and repositories of Ubuntu using the command:

Note:The command would make sure that Ubuntu installs the latest version of PuTTY, in case, it might install the older versions of the software. The word “sudo” in the command is used to instruct the terminal to run the update command as “root” since a user might not have privileges to get going with the installation and updation. It will prompt you to enter the username and password if you have the required access.

3. Now, run the command:

It will complete the installation by installing the application tools.

4. A prompt will asked if you want to continue the installation. Press ‘y’.

5. PuTTY tools will be unpacked and set up in the further process.

6. To confirm if that the installation is successful, run the command:

It will display information about the application such as version, architecture, and description.

Installation of PuTTY on other Linux distributions

In Debian based Linux system, use apt-get or aptitude to install the server application PuTTY. The command is:

PuTTY can easily be installed on Arch-based Linux system. The command for installing is:

It is also available for installation on Fedora or Red Hat based Linux system, and the default package manager does that job for it. The command is:

Putty Key Generator For Mac Os

Working on PuTTY on Linux

Now that you have installed PuTTY, working on it is pretty simple too.

  1. Just type the command “PuTTY” on the shell prompt. It will open the PuTTY SSH client application.
  2. After opening it, enter the IP address or the hostname of the computer or any device you want to connect on Hostname field.
  3. Next, select the required connection type, like SSH, Raw, Telnet, Rlogin, Serial, etc.
  4. For security reasons, a prompt will ask to confirm the connection. Just click ‘yes’ to continue.
  5. Now, you will be connected to your remote system. It will further ask for credentials – username and password, to make sure that you are authorized to connect to the system.
  6. In Linux, the application can also be opened by searching in the Computer Box.
  7. The Linux version of the program almost looks and feels exactly like the windows version.

SSH Key Management in PuTTY on Linux

Public key authentication is also supported by PuTTY. Public key authentication is used for interactive and automated connections. It offers a higher cryptographic strength which is difficult to achieve with long passwords. For generating a private key for authentication, the PuTTYgen tool is used.

Open PuTTYgen and run the following command to get public key authentication enabled:

To get the public key use the following command:

Hence, that was all about installing and getting started with PuTTY on Linux based systems.

PuTTY is a free, highly configurable and open-source SSH client which makes it convenient to connect to a remote server and transfer files over the network. Mainly aimed for the use of programmers and network administrator, it helps establish secure connections when transferring data over the network.

Apart from SSH, the application supports many other protocols like SCP, Telnet, Raw Socket Connection, etc. Additionally, it can also connect to a serial port. While it supports many variations on the secure remote terminal, it also facilitates user control over SSH encryption key and protocol versions.

PuTTY for Mac

Let’s talk about the steps to install PuTTY on a MAC operating system. As a prerequisite, users need the following application installed on the system:

  1. Command-line Tools
  2. X-CODE
  3. MacPorts

Install Putty on a Mac using Command-line Tools

MAC users have this facility to use a Unix toolkit. Users have to use the terminal to access the kit. The tool package gives its users many tools, utilities, and compilers that include GCC, Perl, svn, git, etc. Many of the commands are found on Linux installations by default. Let’s look at the steps to install it.

  1. To begin with, the installation, go to the Apple Developer website.
  2. Login and in the download section and search for Command Line Tools.
  3. Install the .dmg file.

Use X-Code to install Putty for mac

It’s an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) specially designed for MAC OS. It consists of a suite of software development tools for developing software for MAC OS, iOS, WatchOS, and tvOS.

It also supports source codes from programming languages like C, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, etc. It’s available on the app store. So, go to app store, search for “x-code” and click on “get.”

Install Putty for mac using MacPorts

It’s open-source software designed to simplify the installation of other software. One can install some packages by entering a command in the terminal, which will download, compile and install the requested software. It also installs any required dependencies related to the software automatically.

  • Download MacPorts from here.
  • A pkg file will be downloaded. Just double-click to install it.

Download PuTTY for Mac and Installation

After installing the tools, let’s get to the PuTTY installation part.

1. You need to accept the Licence Agreement of X-Code before using it. So, open the terminal from the utility section. It’s just like command line on Linux.

2. Type the command:

By running this command, the Xcode License will be viewed/accepted on behalf of all accounts on the Mac.

3. Press enter to view the License agreement and type “agree.” A line on the terminal will say “You can view the license agreements in x-code About box.”

4. Update MacPorts by typing:

to make sure that x-code is fully installed. Now, the Mac system is ready to install PuTTY.

5. Type the following command

in the Terminal and run the command. It will download some of the dependencies of PuTTY.

6. Type:

in the terminal to launch the application. Running the command would open PuTTY in an X11 window.

7. To copy PuTTY to the desktop as a shortcut icon, type the following command

and hit enter.

8. A desktop icon will be on the desktop which opens the PuTTY configuration box.

Following the installation users can start connecting to servers by adding the IP address and the port (depending on the type of connection you want to make) of the server.

Users can even save sessions containing the IP address of the servers, which would need to be accessed multiple times. Once connected, users can create, update or manipulate with the data present on the server, given that you have the necessary rights to perform those actions.

PuTTY client is one of the best SSH clients as it offers a variety of features like logging, cursor formatting, keyboard formatting, alert sound, resizing the terminal window, changing the actions of mouse buttons, configuring proxies, configuring session-related options, auto-login facility and much more.

However, alternatives to PuTTY can be found here.

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:

  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:

  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. Generate fingerprint from private key mac. 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:

  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.

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.