With a secure shell (SSH) key pair, you can create virtual machines (VMs) in Azure that use SSH keys for authentication, eliminating the need for passwords to sign in. This article shows you how to quickly generate and use an SSH public-private key file pair for Linux VMs. You can complete these steps with the Azure Cloud Shell, a macOS or Linux host, the Windows Subsystem for Linux, and other tools that support OpenSSH.
Note
VMs created using SSH keys are by default configured with passwords disabled, which greatly increases the difficulty of brute-force guessing attacks.
For more background and examples, see Detailed steps to create SSH key pairs.
For additional ways to generate and use SSH keys on a Windows computer, see How to use SSH keys with Windows on Azure.
Mac os ssh load key invalid format. Mac os ssh load key invalid format. How to upload an SSH key via the DreamCompute dashboard; Connect to your DreamCompute Instance with SSH keys in Mac or Linux; How to configure passwordless login in Mac OS X and Linux; Creating and importing a Key pair using the OpenStack CLI; Creating a new Key pair in Windows. To generate the public/private key pair, enter this in the Command Prompt: ssh-keygen At the first prompt, “Enter file in which to save the key,” press Enter to save it in the default location. Setting Up Public Key Authentication for SSH. The following simple steps are required to set up public key authentication (for SSH): Key pair is created (typically by the user). This is typically done with ssh-keygen. Private key stays with the user (and only there), while the public key is sent to the server. Typically with the ssh-copy-id. Copy the SSH key to your clipboard. If your SSH key file has a different name than the example code, modify the filename to match your current setup. When copying your key, don't add any newlines or whitespace. $ sudo apt-get install xclip # Downloads and installs xclip.
Azure currently supports SSH protocol 2 (SSH-2) RSA public-private key pairs with a minimum length of 2048 bits. Other key formats such as ED25519 and ECDSA are not supported.
Use the ssh-keygen
command to generate SSH public and private key files. By default, these files are created in the ~/.ssh directory. You can specify a different location, and an optional password (passphrase) to access the private key file. If an SSH key pair with the same name exists in the given location, those files are overwritten.
The following command creates an SSH key pair using RSA encryption and a bit length of 4096:
If you use the Azure CLI to create your VM with the az vm create command, you can optionally generate SSH public and private key files using the --generate-ssh-keys
option. The key files are stored in the ~/.ssh directory unless specified otherwise with the --ssh-dest-key-path
option. The --generate-ssh-keys
option will not overwrite existing key files, instead returning an error. In the following command, replace VMname and RGname with your own values:
To create a Linux VM that uses SSH keys for authentication, specify your SSH public key when creating the VM using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, Azure Resource Manager templates, or other methods:
If you're not familiar with the format of an SSH public key, you can display your public key with the following cat
command, replacing ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
with the path and filename of your own public key file if needed: Lemonade tycoon 2 key generator.
A typical public key value looks like this example:
If you copy and paste the contents of the public key file to use in the Azure portal or a Resource Manager template, make sure you don't copy any trailing whitespace. To copy a public key in macOS, you can pipe the public key file to pbcopy
. Similarly in Linux, you can pipe the public key file to programs such as xclip
.
The public key that you place on your Linux VM in Azure is by default stored in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub, unless you specified a different location when you created the key pair. To use the Azure CLI 2.0 to create your VM with an existing public key, specify the value and optionally the location of this public key using the az vm create command with the --ssh-key-values
option. In the following command, replace VMname, RGname, and keyFile with your own values:
If you want to use multiple SSH keys with your VM, you can enter them in a space-separated list, like this --ssh-key-values sshkey-desktop.pub sshkey-laptop.pub
. megasync upgrade windows cracked key generator/fortigate-l2tp-pre-shared-key-generator.html.
With the public key deployed on your Azure VM, and the private key on your local system, SSH into your VM using the IP address or DNS name of your VM. In the following command, replace azureuser and myvm.westus.cloudapp.azure.com with the administrator user name and the fully qualified domain name (or IP address):
If you specified a passphrase when you created your key pair, enter that passphrase when prompted during the login process. The VM is added to your ~/.ssh/known_hosts file, and you won't be asked to connect again until either the public key on your Azure VM changes or the server name is removed from ~/.ssh/known_hosts.
If the VM is using the just-in-time access policy, you need to request access before you can connect to the VM. For more information about the just-in-time policy, see Manage virtual machine access using the just in time policy.
For more information on working with SSH key pairs, see Detailed steps to create and manage SSH key pairs.
If you have difficulties with SSH connections to Azure VMs, see Troubleshoot SSH connections to an Azure Linux VM.
As described in detail on https://openradar.appspot.com/27348363, macOS/OS X till Yosemite used to remember SSH keys added by command ssh-add -K <key>
.
Unfortunately this way no longer works. Keys added to the keychain via ssh-add -K
are not automatically re-added to the ssh-agent after a reboot. As Apple Developer stated:
'That’s expected. We re-aligned our behavior with the mainstream OpenSSH in this area.'
Apple updated its Technical Notes to indicate that since 10.12.2, macOS includes version 7.3p1 of OpenSSH and its new behaviors.
In ~/.ssh
create config
file with the following content:
After usage of ssh-add -K <key>
(it's recommended to use absolute path of keys) call the command ssh-add -A
on every startup of macOS.
To automate this, add a .plist with the following content to the path ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
:
Create this file with the Lingon app.
Use curl
to download the .plist file to the stated path:
If you have issues with ssh-add: illegal option -- K
after using the ssh-add -K
command, you may use the full path of the command /usr/bin/ssh-add
.