Putty ssh key how to#

Before generating your SSH Key pair, you can edit some settings, for example, key length, however, in most cases the default options will work just fine.You should be able to see a window like this:.Open up PuTTYgen by double clicking on the puttygen.exe file you have downloaded in Step 1.No installation is required for PuTTYgen, it will run when you execute the file. You should be able to see this file downloaded:.Most of you have PuTTY installed on your computers already, however, to generate SSH Keys you also will need PuTTYgen. PuTTY and PuTTYgen installed on your computer ( Download here).Step 3 - Setting up your private key on PuTTYīefore you begin this guide you’ll need the following:.If you want to generate SSH Keys on Linux or Mac, see this tutorial.ĭownload Ultimate SSH Commands Cheat Sheet

Putty ssh key how to#

In this tutorial, we will focus on Windows users who use PuTTY for connections to the server and show how to generate PuTTY SSH Keys. Of course, you can upload keys of multiple users so that you or other authorized users would be able to connect to the server from different computers.Īs you can see this is a much safer connection method. When connecting to the server, a validation of these two keys is made and if the key pair passes the validation you are allowed to connect. The private key is placed on your local machine and the public key is uploaded to the server. Basically, you generate a key pair (private key and public key). SSH Key authentication only allows connections from clients whose key matches the one on the server. However, if your password gets leaked, it is a major risk as anyone who knows your password will be able to get into the server. With password authentication, you can connect to your server from any location, you only need to fill in your password. Therefore, it is highly recommended to use SSH Key authentication method for connections to your servers. It is definitely more secure than the usual SSH password authentication. SSH keys are one of the most secure SSH authentication options.