Puttygen import pem

However, I had the same issue as @F103436P where PUTTY couldn't use this key to log me in to the new BlueMix VM. If you have a PUTTYGen (usually part of PUTTY installation on Windows), you can import the key generated from BlueMix (.pem) to it, and then extract both Public and Private Key, and save in (.ppk) format.

It is the private key in (.ppk) format you need to use in PUTTY to ssh into BlueMix VM with. When you save the key it will prompt you to set a passphrase to access the key. If you don't set passphrase, you run the danger that anyone possessing the key being able to log on to your VM without further security. If you set the passphrase, then you need to enter this passphrase to your private key whenever you use PUTTY to ssh into your VM. (Of course, only if your VM was created with accepting ssh key - otherwise you'd have to log on and install the cert manually) As @F103436P mentioned, the username for ssh using this BlueMix generated key is 'ibmcloud' - but this user can switch user to superuser after the logon.

It took me a while to figure that out - and I couldn't find any BlueMix documentation outlining this process beyond generating the (.pem) file. Hopefully anyone having similar problems can benefit from this post.