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.
This version of GitHub Enterprise will be discontinued on This version of GitHub Enterprise was discontinued on 2019-03-27. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features, upgrade to the latest version of GitHub Enterprise.For help with the upgrade, contact GitHub Enterprise support.
After you've checked for existing SSH keys, you can generate a new SSH key to use for authentication, then add it to the ssh-agent.
If you don't already have an SSH key, you must generate a new SSH key. If you're unsure whether you already have an SSH key, check for existing keys.
If you don't want to reenter your passphrase every time you use your SSH key, you can add your key to the SSH agent, which manages your SSH keys and remembers your passphrase.
Open TerminalTerminalGit Bashthe terminal.
Paste the text below, substituting in your GitHub Enterprise email address.
This creates a new ssh key, using the provided email as a label.
When you're prompted to 'Enter a file in which to save the key,' press Enter. This accepts the default file location.
At the prompt, type a secure passphrase. For more information, see 'Working with SSH key passphrases'.
Before adding a new SSH key to the ssh-agent to manage your keys, you should have checked for existing SSH keys and generated a new SSH key. When adding your SSH key to the agent, use the default macOS ssh-add
command, and not an application installed by macports, homebrew, or some other external source.
Start the ssh-agent in the background.
If you're using macOS Sierra 10.12.2 or later, you will need to modify your ~/.ssh/config
file to automatically load keys into the ssh-agent and store passphrases in your keychain.
Add your SSH private key to the ssh-agent and store your passphrase in the keychain. If you created your key with a different name, or if you are adding an existing key that has a different name, replace id_rsa in the command with the name of your private key file.
Note: The -K
option is Apple's standard version of ssh-add
, which stores the passphrase in your keychain for you when you add an ssh key to the ssh-agent.
Nfs undercover key generator download. If you don't have Apple's standard version installed, you may receive an error. For more information on resolving this error, see 'Error: ssh-add: illegal option -- K.'
Add the SSH key to your GitHub account.
If you have GitHub Desktop installed, you can use it to clone repositories and not deal with SSH keys. It also comes with the Git Bash tool, which is the preferred way of running git
commands on Windows.
Ensure the ssh-agent is running:
If you are using another terminal prompt, such as Git for Windows, you can use the 'Auto-launching the ssh-agent' instructions in 'Working with SSH key passphrases', or start it manually:
Add your SSH private key to the ssh-agent. If you created your key with a different name, or if you are adding an existing key that has a different name, replace id_rsa in the command with the name of your private key file.
Add the SSH key to your GitHub account.
Start the ssh-agent in the background.
Add your SSH private key to the ssh-agent. If you created your key with a different name, or if you are adding an existing key that has a different name, replace id_rsa in the command with the name of your private key file.
Add the SSH key to your GitHub account.
Start the ssh-agent in the background.
Add your SSH private key to the ssh-agent. If you created your key with a different name, or if you are adding an existing key that has a different name, replace id_rsa in the command with the name of your private key file.
Add the SSH key to your GitHub account.
With a secure shell (SSH) key pair, you can create virtual machines (VMs) in Azure that use SSH keys for authentication, eliminating the need for passwords to sign in. This article shows you how to quickly generate and use an SSH public-private key file pair for Linux VMs. You can complete these steps with the Azure Cloud Shell, a macOS or Linux host, the Windows Subsystem for Linux, and other tools that support OpenSSH.
Note
VMs created using SSH keys are by default configured with passwords disabled, which greatly increases the difficulty of brute-force guessing attacks.
For more background and examples, see Detailed steps to create SSH key pairs.
For additional ways to generate and use SSH keys on a Windows computer, see How to use SSH keys with Windows on Azure.
Azure currently supports SSH protocol 2 (SSH-2) RSA public-private key pairs with a minimum length of 2048 bits. Other key formats such as ED25519 and ECDSA are not supported.
Use the ssh-keygen
command to generate SSH public and private key files. By default, these files are created in the ~/.ssh directory. You can specify a different location, and an optional password (passphrase) to access the private key file. If an SSH key pair with the same name exists in the given location, those files are overwritten.
The following command creates an SSH key pair using RSA encryption and a bit length of 4096:
If you use the Azure CLI to create your VM with the az vm create command, you can optionally generate SSH public and private key files using the --generate-ssh-keys
option. The key files are stored in the ~/.ssh directory unless specified otherwise with the --ssh-dest-key-path
option. The --generate-ssh-keys
option will not overwrite existing key files, instead returning an error. In the following command, replace VMname and RGname with your own values:
To create a Linux VM that uses SSH keys for authentication, specify your SSH public key when creating the VM using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, Azure Resource Manager templates, or other methods:
If you're not familiar with the format of an SSH public key, you can display your public key with the following cat
command, replacing ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
with the path and filename of your own public key file if needed:
A typical public key value looks like this example:
If you copy and paste the contents of the public key file to use in the Azure portal or a Resource Manager template, make sure you don't copy any trailing whitespace. To copy a public key in macOS, you can pipe the public key file to pbcopy
. Similarly in Linux, you can pipe the public key file to programs such as xclip
.
The public key that you place on your Linux VM in Azure is by default stored in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub, unless you specified a different location when you created the key pair. To use the Azure CLI 2.0 to create your VM with an existing public key, specify the value and optionally the location of this public key using the az vm create command with the --ssh-key-values
option. In the following command, replace VMname, RGname, and keyFile with your own values:
If you want to use multiple SSH keys with your VM, you can enter them in a space-separated list, like this --ssh-key-values sshkey-desktop.pub sshkey-laptop.pub
.
With the public key deployed on your Azure VM, and the private key on your local system, SSH into your VM using the IP address or DNS name of your VM. In the following command, replace azureuser and myvm.westus.cloudapp.azure.com with the administrator user name and the fully qualified domain name (or IP address):
If you specified a passphrase when you created your key pair, enter that passphrase when prompted during the login process. The VM is added to your ~/.ssh/known_hosts file, and you won't be asked to connect again until either the public key on your Azure VM changes or the server name is removed from ~/.ssh/known_hosts.
If the VM is using the just-in-time access policy, you need to request access before you can connect to the VM. For more information about the just-in-time policy, see Manage virtual machine access using the just in time policy.
For more information on working with SSH key pairs, see Detailed steps to create and manage SSH key pairs.
If you have difficulties with SSH connections to Azure VMs, see Troubleshoot SSH connections to an Azure Linux VM.