[Solved] Install SSH Key Pair on CentOS and Putty on Windows

[boxygen]

I had to spend hours and hours on internet to find a way to install SSH Key Pair for SSH Login on CentOS Server.

1. Login SSH as root
2. ]# ssh-keygen -t rsa
See this https://phoenixnap.com/kb/how-to-genera ... y-centos-7
3. It will create private and public key with the name you give in the current folder. In my case file name I gave is private_key so it creates 2 files private_key and private_key.pub
4. ]# cp private_key.pub .ssh/authorized_keys
The above command will copy the public key to authorized_keys.
5. ]# chmod 700 ~/.ssh && chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
6. ]# nano private_key
7. copy the text using mouse right click.
8. Paste the private_key in NotePad file private_key.txt
9. Open command prompt in Windows.
10. >puttygen private_key.txt -o private_key.ppk
11. This will convert the private key to putty format.
12. Now create a session in Putty and Under the Auth tab add the private_key.ppk file.
13. Now you can loging without password and using the

[grayfolk]

Also you can generate key pair via Puttygen and paste public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
Puttygen will create .ppk immediately.

[boxygen]

With Google Compute Engine there are some restrictions.
It doesn't allow root login. Instead it creates a default user that is your email id without gmail.com.
From Compute Engine Instance when you click on SSH it opens Linux Terminal with the same user.

Here now you have to repeat the same process as mentioned in Post # 1.

[sabasty]

Thank so much for the detailed solution I have had similar issues on droplet running on digital oceans. I posted on the forum so I could get help for my website only for post to be deleted twice by mods, making me wonder if this community is still providing value as they really say. I'm glad you you provided a good solution.