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. The Solution: When you get to the public key screen in creating your key pair in puttygen, copy the public key and paste it into a text file with the extension.pub. You will save you sysadmin hours of frustration reading posts like this. The.pub file is your public key, and the other file is the corresponding private key. If you don’t have these files (or you don’t even have a.ssh directory), you can create them by running a program called ssh-keygen, which is provided with the SSH package on Linux/macOS systems and comes with Git for Windows. NOTE: You can also use puttygen to import ssh style PEM files back into putty. PuTTY's author opted for simplicity so the public and private keys which make up the underlying security used by putty/ssh 2 key authentication are stored in a single proprietary.ppk file. Typically these keys are maintained as a 2 separate files by ssh. On Linux the key files are typically kept in the directory,.ssh. There is a good overview of the conversion process here in this Stack Overflow question titled.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
$ 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.
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.
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.
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.
Using SSH public-key authentication to connect to a remote system is a robust, more secure alternative to logging in with an account password or passphrase. SSH public-key authentication relies on asymmetric cryptographic algorithms that generate a pair of separate keys (a key pair), one 'private' and the other 'public'. You keep the private key a secret and store it on the computer you use to connect to the remote system. Conceivably, you can share the public key with anyone without compromising the private key; you store it on the remote system in a .ssh/authorized_keys
directory.
To use SSH public-key authentication:
~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file in your account.To set up public-key authentication using SSH on a Linux or macOS computer:
To generate RSA keys, on the command line, enter:
Enter
or Return
without entering a filename.Alternatively, you can enter a filename (for example, my_ssh_key
) at the prompt, and then press Enter
or Return
. However, many remote hosts are configured to accept private keys with the default filename and path (~/.ssh/id_rsa
for RSA keys) by default. Consequently, to authenticate with a private key that has a different filename, or one that is not stored in the default location, you must explicitly invoke it either on the SSH command line or in an SSH client configuration file (~/.ssh/config
); see below for instructions.
Enter
or Return
. If you press Enter
or Return
without entering a password, your private key will be generated without password-protection.Your private key will be generated using the default filename (for example, id_rsa
) or the filename you specified (for example, my_ssh_key
), and stored on your computer in a .ssh
directory off your home directory (for example, ~/.ssh/id_rsa
or ~/.ssh/my_ssh_key
).
The corresponding public key will be generated using the same filename (but with a .pub
extension added) and stored in the same location (for example, ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
or ~/.ssh/my_ssh_key.pub
).
~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
) to your account on the remote system (for example, [email protected]
); for example, using command-line SCP: You'll be prompted for your account password. Your public key will be copied to your home directory (and saved with the same filename) on the remote system.
~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file in your account (if your account doesn't have ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file, system administrators can create one for you). Once your public key is added to your ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file on the remote system, the setup process is complete, and you should now be able to SSH to your account from the computer that has your private key.~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file, create one; on the command line, enter the following commands: ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file, executing these commands will not damage the existing directory or file.~/id_rsa.pub
) to a new line in your ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file; on the command line, enter: You may want to check the contents of ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
to make sure your public key was added properly; on the command line, enter:
~/id_rsa.pub
) from your account on the remote system; on the command line, enter:Alternatively, if you prefer to keep a copy of your public key on the remote system, move it to your .ssh
directory; on the command line, enter:
[email protected]
) from the computer (for example, host1
) that has your private key (for example, ~/.ssh/id_rsa
):If the private key you're using does not have the default name, or is not stored in the default path (not ~/.ssh/id_rsa
), you must explicitly invoke it in one of two ways:
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-i
flag and the path to your private key.For example, to invoke the private key host2_key
, stored in the ~/.ssh/old_keys
directory, when connecting to your account on a remote host (for example, [email protected]
), enter:
~/.ssh/config
), if it exists/etc/ssh/ssh_config
)The SSH client configuration file is a text file containing keywords and arguments. To specify which private key should be used for connections to a particular remote host, use a text editor to create a ~/.ssh/config
that includes the Host
and IdentityFile
keywords.
For example, for connections to host2.somewhere.edu
, to make SSH automatically invoke the private key host2_key
, stored in the ~/.ssh/old_keys
directory, create a ~/.ssh/config
file with these lines included:
Once you save the file, SSH will use the specified private key for future connections to that host.
You can add multiple Host
and IdentityFile
directives to specify a different private key for each host listed; for example:
Alternatively, you can use a single asterisk ( *
) to provide global defaults for all hosts (specify one private key for several hosts); for example:
For more about the SSH client configuration file, see the OpenSSH SSH client configuration file on the web or from the command line (man ssh_config
).
The PuTTY command-line SSH client, the PuTTYgen key generation utility, the Pageant SSH authentication agent, and the PuTTY SCP and SFTP utilities are packaged together in a Windows installer available under The MIT License for free download from the PuTTY development team.
After installing PuTTY:
2048
).putty_key
), select a location on your computer to store it, and then click Save.putty_private_key
), select a location on your computer to store it, and then click Save.putty_rsa
), select a location on your computer to store it, and then click Save.If the remote system does not support password-based authentication, you will need to ask system administrators to add your public key to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file in your account (if your account doesn't have ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file, system administrators can create one for you). Once your public key is added to your account's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file on the remote system..
~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file, create one; on the command line, enter the following commands:If your account on the remote system already has ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
, executing these commands will not damage the existing directory or file.
~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file, and then save and close the file.putty_private_key.ppk
), select the file, and then click Open.If your private key is not passphrase-protected, Pageant will add your private key without prompting you for a passphrase.
Either way, Pageant stores the unencrypted private key in memory for use by PuTTY when you initiate an SSH session to the remote system that has your public key.
Deathstar
), and then click Save.Startup
folder to launch Pageant and load your private key automatically whenever you log into your desktop. For instructions, finish the rest of the following steps.Startup
folder. Press Win-r
, and in the 'Open' field, type shell:startup
, and then press Enter
.Startup
folder, and then select New and Shortcut.pageant.exe
) followed by the path to your private key file (for example, putty_private_key.ppk
); enclose both paths in double quotes; for example: PAGEANT
).The next time you log into your Windows desktop, Pageant will start automatically, load your private key, and (if applicable) prompt you for the passphrase.