Nov 26, 2018 How to use SSH keys with Windows on Azure.; 6 minutes to read +2; In this article. This article describes ways to generate and use secure shell (SSH) keys on a Windows computer to create and connect to a Linux virtual machine (VM) in Azure.

An SSH Key allows you to log into your server without needing a password. SSH Keys can be automatically added to servers during the installation process. Creating an SSH key on Windows. The simplest way to create SSH key on Windows is to use PuTTYgen. Download and run PuTTYgen. Click the 'Generate' button. Go to Windows Start menu → All Programs → PuTTY → PuTTYgen. Creating a new key pair for authentication. To create a new key pair, select the type of key to generate from the bottom of the screen (using SSH-2 RSA with 2048 bit key size is good for most people; another good well-known alternative is. May 05, 2019  To generate an SSH key pair on Windows using PuTTYgen perform the following steps: Start the PuTTYgen tool, by double-clicking on its.exe file or going to the Windows Start menu → PuTTY (64-bit) → PuTTYgen. For “Type of key to generate” leave the default RSA. The “Number of bits in a generated key”, 2048 is sufficient for most people. As you can see, it’s very easy to generate SSH keys on Windows these days. Basically, the ssh-keygen command does all the work. If you find it difficult to understand how to add the public key to the server, look up your provider’s documentation. They always have a page that describes, in detail, how to do this.

Enter a key comment, which will identify the key (useful when you use several SSH keys). 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. Aug 19, 2019  In this article, you learned how to generate SSH key pairs and set up an SSH key-based authentication. We also covered copying keys to your remote.

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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.

How to download qiime mac. 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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

An SSH Key allows you to log into your server without needing a password. SSH Keys can be automatically added to servers during the installation process.

Creating an SSH key on Windows

The simplest way to create SSH key on Windows is to use PuTTYgen.

• Download and run PuTTYgen.
• Click the 'Generate' button.
• For additional security, you can enter a key passphrase. This will be required to use the SSH key, and will prevent someone with access to your key file from using the key.
• Once the key has been generated, click 'Save Private Key'. Make sure you save this somewhere safe, as it is not possible to recover this file if it gets lost
• Select all of the text in the 'Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file'. This is what you would need to enter into the control panel to use the SSH key.

Creating an SSH key on Linux

Generate Ssh Key Windows Git

The tools to create and use SSH are standard, and should be present on most Linux distributions. With the following commands, you can generate ssh key.

• Run: ssh-keygen -t rsa. For a more secure 4096-bit key, run: ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
• Press enter when asked where you want to save the key (this will use the default location).
• Enter a passphrase for your key.
• Run cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub - this will give you the key in the proper format to paste into the control panel.
• Make sure you backup the ~/.ssh/id_rsa file. This cannot be recovered if it is lost.

Adding an SSH key to your control panel

• Once you're logged in, go to https://my.vultr.com/sshkeys.
• Click 'Add SSH Key'.
• Enter a descriptive name for the key.
• Paste in your SSH public key. This is a long string beginning with 'ssh-rsa'. You should have saved this from when you generated your key.
• Click 'Add SSH Key'.
• Now, when you're deploying servers you will be able to select which SSH keys you want to add to the newly deployed server. Remember to select the keys before the initial server deployment, otherwise you will need to log into the newly created server and add the SSH keys manually.

Limitations

• SSH keys are only available for Linux and FreeBSD. They are not supported for Windows, custom ISOs, nor snapshot restores.
• SSH keys can only be managed from the control panel during deployment. You cannot use the control panel to manage them on an already-installed instance.

Connecting to a server using an SSH key from a Windows client

• Download and run the PuTTY SSH client.
• Type the IP address or Username + IP address ( user@x.x.x.x ) of the destination server under the 'Host Name' field on the 'Session' category.
• Navigate to the 'Connection -> SSH -> Auth' category (left-hand side).
• Click 'Browse..' near 'Private key file for authentication'. Choose the private key file (ending in .ppk) that you generated earlier with PuTTYgen.
• Click 'Open' to initiate the connection.
• When finished, end your session by pressing Ctrl+d.

Connecting to a server using an SSH key from a Linux client

Generate An Ssh Key Windows Command Line

Generate Ssh Key Windows Gitlab

• Check that your Linux operating system has an SSH client installed ( which ssh ). If a client is not installed, you will need to install one.
• Initiate a connection: ssh -i /path/to/id_rsa user@x.x.x.x
• When finished, end your session by pressing Ctrl+d.