To generate key for AWS server using ssh-keygen from .pem for PuTTY

Question

AWS gave me a private key in the format of .pem. I am trying to use it with PuTTY but failed and I read I need to generate a key with PuTTYgen but PuTTYgen is only for Windows. So I am trying to use the Linux command ssh-keygen. But what is exactly the command that can generate such a key that PuTTY can use?

BTW, I can connect with console using ssh without problem with the .pem file.

Answer 1

To convert the .pem key to the .ppk key using the *nix command-line version of the puttygen use:

puttygen mykey.pem -o mykey.ppk 

See the puttygen man page.

There's PuTTY rpm and "putty-tools" package available for many *nix distributions.

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The .ppk format is proprietary to PuTTY, so tools outside of PuTTY toolset (like the ssh-keygen) do not support it.

Note that you can convert the key on Windows using GUI version of PuTTYgen and still use the converted key on Linux.

Answer 2

You need to convert the provided PEM file to PPK file using Puttygen tool in Windows.

• Open puttygen and click on import key option in the menu.
• Once it is imported you will see the button which says "Save Private Key".
• Save it as a xyz.ppk file name and they load that ppk file in putty and login.

Hope this helps.