Several tools exist to generate SSH public/private key pairs. The following sections show how to generate an SSH key pair on UNIX, UNIX-like and Windows platforms.

Public key cryptography uses a public key to encrypt a piece of data, and then the recipient uses the private key to decrypt the data. The public and private keys are known as a key pair. Public key cryptography enables you to securely access your instances using a private key instead of a password.

Jan 24, 2017 This video describes the workflow for generating RSA Key Pairs on a Mac device using JumpCloud. The process can be replicated on a Linux device.
Removing a passphrase from a private key. If you have a private key that is protected with a passphrase and you want to create a copy that has no passphrase on it, you can do it like this: # If a private key has a passphrase, remove it. # Will be prompted to enter the passphrase openssl rsa -in server.key -out server-nopassphrase.key.
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.

Tutorial Generate Public And Private Key Mac Os

Generating an SSH Key Pair on UNIX and UNIX-Like Platforms Using the ssh-keygen Utility

UNIX and UNIX-like platforms (including Solaris and Linux) include the ssh-keygen utility to generate SSH key pairs.

To generate an SSH key pair on UNIX and UNIX-like platforms using the ssh-keygen utility:

Navigate to your home directory:
Run the ssh-keygen utility, providing as filename your choice of file name for the private key:
The ssh-keygen utility prompts you for a passphrase for the private key.
Enter a passphrase for the private key, or press Enter to create a private key without a passphrase:
Note:
While a passphrase is not required, you should specify one as a security measure to protect the private key from unauthorized use. When you specify a passphrase, a user must enter the passphrase every time the private key is used.
The ssh-keygen utility prompts you to enter the passphrase again.
Enter the passphrase again, or press Enter again to continue creating a private key without a passphrase:
The ssh-keygen utility displays a message indicating that the private key has been saved as filename and the public key has been saved as filename.pub. It also displays information about the key fingerprint and randomart image.

Generating an SSH Key Pair on Windows Using the PuTTYgen Program

The PuTTYgen program is part of PuTTY, an open source networking client for the Windows platform.

Tutorial Generate Public And Private Key Mac Pro

To generate an SSH key pair on Windows using the PuTTYgen program:

Download and install PuTTY or PuTTYgen.
To download PuTTY or PuTTYgen, go to http://www.putty.org/ and click the You can download PuTTY here link.
Run the PuTTYgen program.
Set the Type of key to generate option to SSH-2 RSA.
In the Number of bits in a generated key box, enter 2048.
Click Generate to generate a public/private key pair.
As the key is being generated, move the mouse around the blank area as directed.
(Optional) Enter a passphrase for the private key in the Key passphrase box and reenter it in the Confirm passphrase box.
Note:
While a passphrase is not required, you should specify one as a security measure to protect the private key from unauthorized use. When you specify a passphrase, a user must enter the passphrase every time the private key is used.
Click Save private key to save the private key to a file. To adhere to file-naming conventions, you should give the private key file an extension of .ppk (PuTTY private key).
Note:
The .ppk file extension indicates that the private key is in PuTTY's proprietary format. You must use a key of this format when using PuTTY as your SSH client. It cannot be used with other SSH client tools. Refer to the PuTTY documentation to convert a private key in this format to a different format.
Select all of the characters in the Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file box.
Make sure you select all the characters, not just the ones you can see in the narrow window. If a scroll bar is next to the characters, you aren't seeing all the characters.
Right-click somewhere in the selected text and select Copy from the menu.
Open a text editor and paste the characters, just as you copied them. Start at the first character in the text editor, and do not insert any line breaks.
Save the text file in the same folder where you saved the private key, using the .pub extension to indicate that the file contains a public key.
If you or others are going to use an SSH client that requires the OpenSSH format for private keys (such as the ssh utility on Linux), export the private key:
1. On the Conversions menu, choose Export OpenSSH key.
2. Save the private key in OpenSSH format in the same folder where you saved the private key in .ppk format, using an extension such as .openssh to indicate the file's content.

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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.

Supported SSH key formats

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.

Create an SSH key pair

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:

Provide an SSH public key when deploying a VM

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