Introduction
One effective way of securing SSH access to your Cloud Server is to use a public/private key pair. This means that a public key is placed on the server and a private key is placed on your local workstation. Using a key pair makes it impossible for someone to log in by using just a password, as long as you set up SSH to deny password-based authentication.
Generate Keys
In Windows, use PuTTYgen to generate our public and private keys.
- If needed, download PuTTYgen from the PuTTY download page. (PuTTYgen might have been installed previously with PuTTY or WinSCP.)
- Launch the program, and then click the Generate button.
The program generates the keys for you. - Enter a password you will remember in the Key passphrase and confirm it. (Do not forget this password, you will need it each time you log in using this keyset.
- Save the public and private keys by clicking the Save public key and Save private key buttons.
- From the Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file field at the top of the window, copy all of the text (starting with ssh-rsa) to your clipboard by pressing Ctrl-C.
You need this key available on your clipboard to paste into a text document to send to Webworx or directly into the authorized keys on your cloud server.
Please Note: The Private Key should be kept safe and never provided to anyone (other than any internal staff that you want to use the same key set to access servers). Only provide your Public key to be added at a server end.