PuTTYgen is a key generator tool for creating pairs of public and private SSH keys. It is one of the components of the open-source networking client PuTTY. Although originally written for Microsoft Windows operating system, it is now officially available for multiple operating systems including macOS, Linux. PuTTYgen.exe is the graphical tool on Windows OS. While on the other side, Linux OS has the only command-line version could be accessible using SSH commands.

  • 1 Download PuTTYgen
    • 1.1 Download PuTTYgen on Windows
    • 1.2 Download PuTTYgen for Mac
    • 1.3 Download PuTTYgen for Ubuntu/Linux
      • 1.3.3 Types of Keys Supported on PuTTYgen

Puttygen aka Putty Key Generator

The key generation utility – PuTTYgen can create various public-key cryptosystems including Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA), Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), and Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA) keys.

Now you can use putty. Putty For Mac Os X Free Download. Read More – Skype for Mac Download. Putty Alternative for Mac Putty Equivalent for Mac Terminal; It is an app default CLI that comes bundled with the Mac. You can use the Terminal to SSH into a remote server, provided, obviously, you have the valid login details. PuTTY downloads. PuTTY is most commonly used on Windows. It is also available on Linux. Download PuTTY for Windows. Alternative SSH clients. There many SSH clients that are more modern. A major shortcoming of PuTTY is that it does not have integrated file transfers in the client itself.

The aforementioned public-key cryptosystems principally focus on secure data transmission and digital signatures.

Although PuTTYgen collects keys in its native file format i.e. .ppk files, the keys can easily be converted to any file format. For Windows, the software interface is PuTTYgen.exe, whereas, for Linux OS the command-line adaptation is available using SSH commands.

How to use PuTTYgen?

PuTTYgen is used to generate public or private key pair for creating SSH keys. Below is the complete guidance about how to generate RSA key in the Windows operating system:

  1. Once you install the PuTTY on your machine, you can easily run PuTTYgen. For the same, go to Windows -> Start Menu -> All Programs -> PuTTY -> PuTTYgen.
  2. You will see the PuTTY key generator dialog box on your screen
  3. You will find a “Generate” button in that dialog. Clicking on it will lead to generating the keys for you.
  4. Now you will need to add a unique key passphrase in the Key passphrase and Confirm passphrase field.
  5. Click on the “Save Public Key” and “Save Private Key” buttons to save your public and private keys.
  6. You will see the text starting with ssh-RSA in the Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file field which is located at the top of the window. Copy that entire text to your clipboard by pressing ctrl+c as you will require the key to paste on your clipboard in the public key tool of control panel or directly on the cloud server.

Various Ways to Use RSA Key Pair

RSA key pair generated through PuTTYgen is used in two various ways defined as below:

  1. To assign while creating a new cloud server
    You can choose the public key from the given list of keys at the time of creating a cloud server. If you don’t find your key in that list, then first add and then assign it.
  2. Assign to an existing cloud server
    At the time of connecting to the cloud server, first of all, you need to tell PuTTY to use it for utilizing your newly created RSA key pair.

PuTTYgen being a component of the terminal emulator PuTTY does not have to be downloaded separately, hence, comes with the PuTTY .msi installation package. You can follow the simple steps to download PuTTYgen software for your system. That is the reason why you don’t need to download PuTTYgen separately. Once you download PuTTY software, you will be able to install and run PuTTYgen easily in no time. Below is the complete instruction about how to download and install PuTTY on Windows.

Apart from that, it is also integrated into third-party programs such as WinSCP installation package. Below you can find a complete PuTTYgen download and installation guide for all operating systems.

Download PuTTYgen on Windows

To download PuTTYgen the primary requisite is to acquire the copy of PuTTY installation package. For the 64-bit operating system, one must install the 64-bit version of PuTTY, i.e. putty-64bit-<version>-installer.msi.Similarly, for the 32-bit operating system, the respective 32-bit version of PuTTY, i.e. putty-<version>-installer.msi needs to be installed.

To get PuTTY, go to PuTTY Installation Download page, whereby the complete installation package will be available with setup instructions, installation guide, and download links to all other components of PuTTY such as putty.exe, pscp.exe, psftp.exe, puttytel.exe, plink.exe, pageant.exe and putty.zip.


Following the successful download of the PuTTY installation package. It is time to install the program. Go to How to install PuTTY on Windows, whereby you will find the step by step guidance for PuTTY installation for Windows operating system.

After successfully downloading and installing PuTTY on your Windows machine, you are just 2-3 clicks away to run PuTTYgen. Follow the below-given step by step guidance to run PuTTYgen:

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Run PuTTYgen on Windows

To run PuTTYgen, Go to Windows -> Start Menu -> All Programs -> PuTTY -> PuTTYgen. You will see a window for the PuTTY Key Generator on your screen.

Voila! Now you can generate public or private key pair using PuTTYgen.

Download PuTTYgen for Mac


Mac

Below is the detailed guide to download PuTTYgen on Mac operating system. Mac OS has a built-in command-line SSH client known as Terminal. To utilize it, go to Finder and then opt for Go -> utilities from the top menu. After that find the terminal which supports SSH connections to remote servers.

However, to run PuTTYgen for mac, the first one must have to install PuTTY. There are multiple ways to install PuTTY, which are Homebrew or MacPorts. Both alternatives will also install the command-line of adaptations of PuTTYgen.

Ported PuTTY for Mac

Mac has the port of PuTTY which can be installed in various ways described as below:

  1. Installation using Homebrew:
    First, install the ‘brew command line’ Once installed use the below-given command to install PuTTY:-
    sudo brew install putty
  2. Installation using MacPorts:
    First of all, one must install MacPorts and then use the command-line to install PuTTY. Here is the command to install PuTTY via MacPorts
    sudo port install putty
    Additionally, a user can also add a shortcut to the desktop by writing the following command line
    –cp /opt/local/bin/putty ~/Desktop/PuTTY

However, there is an alternative way to install PuTTY on Mac OS. Cyberduck is a widely used Mac OS SSH Client. Once PuTTY installed on the Mac OS, a user can convert PuTTY derived private key format to OpenSSH.

To convert the private key to standard PEM format, type the following command –

puttygen privatekey.ppk -O private-openssh -o privatekey.pem

You can also read the guide to convert .pem file to .ppk using puttygen.

Download PuTTYgen for Ubuntu/Linux

To download PuTTYgen for Ubuntu (Linux) operating system, a user to first install PuTTY. However, in some Linux distributions, the SSH key generation tool – PuTTYgen needs to be installed independently from the PuTTY client.

Equation editor. For example, Debian Linux requires the below-given code to install PuTTYgen:

sudo apt install putty-tools

Generate Key Pair for Authentication in Linux

To create the key pair for authentication in Linux use the below command:-

puttygen -t rsa -b 2048 -C 'user@host' -o keyfile.ppk

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Various Command Line Options of PuTTY in Linux

Below are few important command line options in the Linux operating system for PuTTY:

PuTTYgen [-t keytype [-b bits] [-q] | keyfile]
[-C new-comment] [-P]
[-O output-type | -p | -l | -L]
[-o output-file]

Options:

  1. Keyfile – It is the name of the existing key file to read at the time of changing the current key.
  2. t keytype – The command specifies the type of key to creating. Its acceptable values are RSA and dsa.rsa1.
  3. -b bits – This command specifies a total number of bit in a particular key. 1024 is the perfect size for DSA key, while 2048 or 4096 are the perfect size for RSA keys.
  4. q – The command suppresses the message about progress at the time of key generation.
  5. -C new-comment – The command will specify the comment to describe the key. It can be used for the new and/or existing key. Key operation is not affected by a comment. However, it is used to recognize the key owner, it’s not reliable completely as any value can be applied to it.
  6. –P – Using the command will update the passphrase of a key. Passphrase helps to encrypt the private key. As passphrase can’t add or update on a command line, it prompts a new passphrase tool to alter it.
  7. –old-passphrase-file – The old password of the key remains in this file. The command is used when the key is protected by a passphrase.
  8. –new-passphrase file – This command prompts the new passphrase of the key. It comes in the action either at the time of generating a new key or while applying –P command to change the passphrase.
  9. -O output-type – This command defines what to give in output. By default, the private key is the output.
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Thus, above are the prominent commands of PuTTYgen in Linux operating system. Besides that, there are many other commands available to perform various tasks from the command prompt in Linux at flank speed.

Types of Keys Supported on PuTTYgen

It is important to know the types of key PuTTYgen supports prior to using it. Below are the key types that it currently supports for SSH-2 and SSH-1 protocol:-

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  • SSH-1 protocol:- For SSH-1 only supports one key i.e. Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA)
  • SSH-2 protocol: – SSH-2 supports multiple key types that include – Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) and Ed25519.

The above description is a detailed brief on downloading and running PuTTYgen on all major operating systems. For further details please check the Download PuTTY page.

PuTTY for Mac is a port of the Windows version of PuTTY. However, there are many options for SSH clients for Mac, and this page discusses several of them.

If you’re dead set on using PuTTY on Mac, try this: PuTTY SSH client for Mac OS X - Download, Tutorial. 2.9k Views View 1 Upvoter. Anas Fettach. Updated Nov 19, 2015. As in the previous answers, you can use Terminal on mac. As I am used to putty on windows, the sessions saving feature is really great. SSH Public Key Authentication. Mac, Linux, or Unix) Copying the public key to any server you want to authenticate using this authentication method. Creating and Copying Your Key-Pair in PuTTY SSH Client. Putty is available here. Start puttygen. Select SSH2 DSA. Change Number of bits from 1024 bits to 2048 bits for better security.

  • Using the built-in SSH client in Mac OS X
  • Ported PuTTY for Mac

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Using the built-in SSH client in Mac OS X

Putty Download Mac Os
  1. PuTTY for Mac is a port of the Windows version of PuTTY. However, there are many options for SSH clients for Mac, and this page discusses several of them. However, there are many options for SSH clients for Mac, and this page discusses several of them.
  2. SSH Clients for Windows and Mac PuTTY is a free open-source terminal emulator which lets you initiate interactive command-line sessions to UITS Unix servers. It can act as a client for the SSH, Telnet, rlogin, and raw TCP computing protocols and as a serial console client.
  3. Putty for Mac SSH, FTP, SCP, Telnet made easy on MacOS and OSX. Also it is cool to use Putty as your SSH client if you are doing some Amazon AWS, VMware ESXi or CISCO Stuffs, transferring files, managing files on a server or whatever. The cost of Putty 9.0.1 is only $15.00. Anyone who purchased Putty in the past three months is entitled to.

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Mac OS X includes a command-line SSH client as part of the operating system. To use it, goto Finder, and selext Go -> Utilities from the top menu. Then look for Terminal. Terminal can be used to get a local terminal window, and also supports SSH connections to remote servers.

Running SSH from the terminal command line

Once you have the terminal window open, you have two alternatives. The first approach is to type ssh hostname or ssh [email protected] into the terminal window. This is more familiar for Linux and Unix users who are used to using a command line.

Running SSH with a graphical user interface

The second option is to select New Remote Connection. from the Shell menu of Terminal. This opens a graphical dialog asking for the host to connect to and the user name. This also allows saving connections. This is recommended for users who are not accustomed to using a command line.

How to use PuTTY SSH keys with the built-in OpenSSH

If you have a PuTTY .ppk format private key and want to use it with the built-in OpenSSH on Mac on the command line or in scripts, you can use the following commands.

First, install PuTTY for Mac using brew install putty or port install putty (see below). This will also install the command-line version of puttygen, the PuTTY key generator tool.

Then, use the following command to convert the .ppk format private key to a standard PEM format private key:

Make sure permissions on the private key file are set properly. It should only be readable by the user that owns it.

Mac

You can now use the key for logins from scripts and command line with:

Ported PuTTY for Mac

There is a port of PuTTY for Mac. It can be installed in several ways.

Installation using HomeBrew

Ssh Client Mac Os

If you already have the brew command installed, the best way to install PuTTY is to use the following command:

Installation using MacPorts

PuTTY is readily available via MacPorts. To see how to install MacPorts and PuTTY, see here.

Once you have MacPorts installed, you just need to give this command:

Putty For Mac Ssh

and to add a shortcut on the Desktop,

Alternatives to PuTTY on the Mac

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A lot of people use Cyberduck on Mac. It is a solid, well-known SSH client that is quite popular.