How to Generate an SSH Key Pair

From Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud: 2009-08-15

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How to Generate an SSH Key Pair

When you run an instance of a public AMI, it has no password and you need a public/private key pair to log in to the instance. One half of this key pair is embedded in your instance, allowing you to log in securely without a password using the other half of the key pair. After learning to create your own images, you can choose other mechanisms to allow you to securely login to your new instances. Every key pair you generate requires a name. Be sure to choose a name that is easy to remember.

	Note
	If you are using PuTTY in Windows, convert the private key to PuTTY's format. For more information on using PuTTy with Amazon EC2, go to the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Getting Started Guide.

AWS Management Console

To generate a key pair

Log in to the AWS Management Console and click the Amazon EC2 tab.
Click Key Pairs in the Navigation pane.

The console displays a list of key pairs associated with your account.
Click Create Key Pair.

The Key Pair dialog box appears.
Enter a name for the new key pair in the Key Pair Name field and click Create.

You are prompted to download the key file.
Download the key file and keep it in a safe place. You will need it to access any instances that you launch with this key pair.

Command Line Tools

To generate a key pair using gsg-keypair

Enter the following information.

PROMPT>  ec2-add-keypair gsg-keypair

Amazon EC2 returns a key pair, similar to the key pair in the following example.

KEYPAIR gsg-keypair  1f:51:ae:28:bf:89:e9:d8:1f:25:5d:37:2d:7d:b8:ca:9f:f5:f1:6f
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----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==
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

The private key returned must be saved to a local file so that you can use it later.

Create a file named id_rsa-gsg-keypair and paste the entire key generated in step 1, including the following lines.
```
"-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----"
"-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----" 
```

Confirm that the file contents looks similar to the following and save the file.

You can save the file in any directory, but if you do not put it in your current directory, you should specify the full path when using commands that require the key pair.

If you're using OpenSSH (or any reasonably paranoid SSH client), you should set the permissions of this file so it is only readable by you.

On Linux and UNIX, enter the information in the following example.
```
$  chmod 700 id_rsa-gsg-keypair ; ls -l id_rsa-gsg-keypair  
```
You receive output similar to the following example.
```
-rw-------  1 fred flintstones 1701 Jun 19 17:57 id_rsa-gsg-keypair 
```

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