Creating an SSH Key Using “ssh-keygen” and Connecting to a Remote Server with It

SSH key; It is a key that provides secure password authentication. In cases where the number of connected servers is high and many different passwords are used on each server, the user must use a password manager or remember each password one by one. SSH key is used to facilitate such operations. Once the SSH key is introduced, servers do not request a password. In this article, we will generate SSH Key by using “ssh-keygen”. Then, we will connect to the Rancher server we created in AWS Cloud, by using this SSH key we created. We will do them practically and step by step.

Topics we will cover:

1. What Is The “ssh-keygen”
2. Creating A Key Pair On The Local Machine By Using “ssh-keygen”
3. Copying The Public Key To The Remote Server
4. Connecting To The Remote Server By Using The SSH keys
5. References

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1. What Is The “ssh-keygen”

The SSH protocol uses “public key cryptography” for authenticating hosts and users. The authentication keys, called SSH keys, are created using the keygen program. The ssh-keygen is a keygen program too. One of the simplest ways to generate a key pair is to use ssh-keygen.

ssh-keygen is a tool for creating new authentication key pairs for SSH. Such key pairs are used for automating logins, single sign-on, and for authenticating hosts. (1) SSH key consists of a “public key” and “private key” pair.