HPC Grid Tutorial: How to Generate and Use SSH Keys with PuTTY

Watch the video tutorial here!

1. Launch PuTTYgen. If needed download from here: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html

2. Under 'Actions' click Generate. 

Move the mouse around to generate the key. 

3. Create a passphrase.

4. Under 'Actions' select 'Save private key'.

Save the file as 'id_rsa.ppk'.

5. Highlight and copy the public key. 

6. Launch PuTTY and logon to the Grid.

7. Create and/or open the authorized_keys file: vi ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

8. Press 'i' to insert and right click your mouse to paste the public key into the authorized_keys file.

Type ':wq' to save and quit. 

9. Logout of the Grid. 

10. Launch PuTTY. Under 'Connection' click on 'SSH' and then 'Auth'. Under 'Private key file for authentication:' click 'Browse' and select the private key file. 

11. Select 'Session' and save your session to save the changes. 

11. Click 'Open' and you can now login using your key pair authentication. Enter your passphrase when prompted.

You should now be successfully logged onto the Grid.