TPA - PuTTY configuration guide v23

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You can use PuTTY under Windows to connect by way of SSH to the AWS instances that were created by the TPA utility tpaexec provision. You need to convert the keys from the private key format generated by Amazon EC2 (.pem) to the PuTTY format (.ppk).

# Provision the cluster
[tpa]$ tpaexec provision <clustername>

PuTTY has a tool named PuTTYgen that can convert keys to the required format.

Key conversion

Follow these steps to perform the key conversion.

Locate private key

Locate the private key in the cluster directory <clustername>. The name uses the cluster_name variable, which is set in config.yml, prefixed by id_. For example, if cluster_name is set to testenv1, then the private key is id_testenv1.

Save key as .pem

Copy the private key file into your Windows file system and save it as a .pem file. Using the same example, the file name is id_testenv1.pem. To create the file, it's okay to paste the content into a text file.

Key conversions

  1. Start PuTTYgen. Under Parameters, select the appropriate type of key to generate:

    • For older versions of PuTTYgen, select SSH-2 RSA.
    • For recent versions, select RSA.
    Note

    Don't select SSH-1 (RSA).

  2. Select Load. In the box labeled PuTTY Private Key Files (*.ppk), select All Files (*.*).

  3. Select your .pem file and select Open. Then select OK.

  4. Select Save private key, and select Yes to ignore the warning about saving the key without a passphrase. Make sure that the file suffix is .ppk, and select the same name as you did for the .pem file. Using the same example, the filename is id_testenv1.ppk.

Configure PuTTY

  1. Start PuTTY. In the Category window, select Session.

  2. In the Host Name panel, enter <user>@<IP address>. In the Port panel, enter 22.

    You can find the <user> and <IP address> values in the <clustername>/ssh_config file that's created by the tpaexec provision utility.

  3. In the PuTTY Category window, select Connection. Expand SSH and select Auth.

  4. For the panel labeled Private key file for authentication, select Browse. Select the .ppk file that you saved earlier, and then select Open.

  5. In the PuTTY Category window, select Session. In Saved Sessions, enter a session name and select Save**.

You can now connect to the AWS host by way of PuTTY by selecting this saved session.