Download ultimate SSH commands cheat sheet<\/a><\/p> Before you begin this guide you’ll need the following:<\/p> Most of you have PuTTY<\/strong> installed on your computers already, however, to generate SSH Keys you also will need PuTTYgen<\/strong>.<\/p> 1. Download PuTTYgen <\/strong>from the official website<\/a>. No installation is required for PuTTYgen. It will run when you execute the file.<\/p> 1. Open up PuTTYgen<\/strong> by double-clicking on the puttygen.exe<\/strong> file you have downloaded in Step 1<\/strong>. You should be able to see a window like this:<\/p> 2. 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. 5. Your public SSH key will be displayed on the screen:<\/p> If you are going to use the key for a Linux-based VPS, make sure to copy the OpenSSH public key somewhere now since Linux systems don’t support the default Putty format. <\/p> 6. For additional security, it is highly recommended to think of a passphrase for your SSH key (However, you can also leave it empty):<\/p> 7. Save your private key to any desired location on your computer and name it anything you like.<\/p> 8. Save your public key to the same location on your computer and name it anything you like.<\/p> And that is it, you have generated your SSH Key pair. The private key will stay on your computer (do not provide it to anyone), while your public key needs to be uploaded to the server you wish to connect to.<\/p> In order for the server to recognize your computer when connecting from PuTTY, you need to attach the private key to PuTTY.<\/p> 1. Open up PuTTY<\/strong> and navigate to Connection → SSH → Auth<\/strong> → Credentials<\/strong> in the left sidebar.<\/p> 2. Browse for your private key file in the field Private key for authentication<\/strong>.<\/p> 3. Select the private key file with .ppk<\/strong> ending and click Open<\/strong>.<\/p> Lastly, you need to upload your public key to the server. There are two methods for that:<\/p> Method 1 – Using hPanel<\/strong><\/p> The easiest method to upload your public key is via hPanel. <\/p> 1. Start by selecting your server:<\/p> 2. Then, navigate to the Settings <\/strong>→ SSH keys <\/strong>page and click on the Add SSH key <\/strong>button:<\/p> 3. Fill in the details and paste the OpenSSH key you’ve copied earlier from the main PuTTYgen window:<\/p> 4. Lastly, hit the Add SSH key<\/strong> button.<\/p> Method 2 – Manually<\/strong><\/p> That is it, you can now use SSH keys instead of SSH password authentication to connect to your VPS.<\/p> You have learned how to generate PuTTY SSH Keys using PuTTYgen. This will make your connection to the server a lot more secure and convenient as you will not need to fill in the password each time. We recommend using this way of SSH authentication at all times and disable password authentication for good to completely secure your server. <\/p> To find out how to completely disable SSH Password authentication on your server and use SSH Key authentication instead, follow this tutorial: How to disable SSH Password authentication on VPS<\/a>.<\/p> \n\n\nWhat you’ll need<\/h2>
\n
Step 1 — Downloading PuTTYgen<\/h2>
2. You should be able to see this file downloaded:<\/p>![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/03\/generate-ssh-keys-putty2.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>Step 2 — Generating your SSH Key pair<\/h2>
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/puttygen-main.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>
3. Generate your SSH Key pair by clicking the Generate<\/strong> button.
4. When the progress bar starts loading, move your mouse randomly across the area to load up the bar and generate your key pair.<\/p>![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/puttygen-generating.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/puttygen-generated.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/puttygen-paraphrase.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/puttygen-saveprivatekey.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/save-putty-key.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/save-putty-key-public.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>Step 3 — Setting up your private key on PuTTY<\/h2>
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/putty-credentials.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/putty-privatekey-browse.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/putty-privatekey-select.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>Step 4 – Adding public key to server<\/h2>
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/hpanel-vps.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/hpanel-vps-settings-sshkeys-addsshkey-highlighted-1024x270.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/hpanel-vps-settings-sshkeys-addsshkey-window.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n
mkdir ~\/.ssh | touch ~\/.ssh\/authorized_keys<\/code><\/li>\n\n\n\nchmod 0700 ~\/.ssh; chmod 0644 ~\/.ssh\/authorized_keys<\/code><\/li>\n\n\n\nvim ~\/.ssh\/authorized_keys<\/code><\/li>\n\n\n\n:x<\/code>, hit Enter<\/strong> button. This command will save changes made to the file.<\/li>\n<\/ol>![\"Hostinger](\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/11\/Web-hosting_in-text-banner.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>Conclusion<\/h2>
Suggested Reading<\/h4>\n