Bitvise puttygen

If your SSH client supports it, you can use public key authentication to log into Bitvise SSH Server. On Windows, we recommend Bitvise SSH Client, which has strong support for public key authentication, as well as password authentication, and Kerberos single sign-on in domain environments.

To set up public key authentication, you first need to generate a keypair on the client, or select one or more existing keypairs for use with client authentication. The procedure for generating the keypair depends on the client software being used:

  • If you are using Bitvise SSH Client, click the link titled Client key manager in the Login tab. You can generate, edit, import and export keypairs in the dialog box that pops up.
  • If you are using a different client, you need to follow its process for generating keypairs. For example, in OpenSSH, keypairs are generated using the ssh-keygen utility. Make sure to generate an SSH2 keypair (not SSH1). Use either the ECDSA, RSA, or DSA (DSS) algorithms. We recommend either ECDSA, or RSA with a size of 2048 bits or higher.

Once the keypair has been generated, you need to import the public key (not the whole keypair!) into the SSH Server.

Recent Bitvise SSH Server and SSH Client versions support the SSH Public Key Subsystem. To import a public key into the SSH Server this way:

  • Use the SSH Client to connect to the SSH Server using the account for which you want to configure the public key.
  • Once connected, open Client key manager. Right-click on the keypair, and select Upload to server.
  • You should now be able to authenticate using this keypair.

You can also use this feature to manage keys in the SSH Server from the command line, using the spksc client included with Bitvise SSH Client.

With most clients, you can export the public key into a file, transfer the file to the SSH Server, and import it into SSH Server settings. In this case:

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