Setup Keypair for ssh

AWS Cli makes it super easy

Here is how you generate a keypair

aws ec2 create-key-pair --key-name keyname

This creates a keyname and redirects it to your console. To save the output to a file use this

aws ec2 create-key-pair --key-name keyname --query 'KeyMaterial' --output text > mykey.pem

These key names are managed under aws. Some commands to manage them

$ aws ec2 describe-key-pairs --key-name MyKeyPair # displays the keypair on your console
$ aws ec2 delete-key-pair --key-name MyKeyPair # delete your keypair

The pem file should have only read access for your user. Make sure to chmod 400 the pem file.

To generate the public key for the pem file to be added to the remote .ssh/authorized_keys file, make sure the .ssh folder permission is set to be only readable and writable by your user. Use following steps

$ chmod 700 .ssh
$ touch .ssh/authorized_keys
$ chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys

You can retrieve the public key for your keypair with this command

$ ssh-keygen -y -f /path_to_key_pair/my-key-pair.pem

This will fail if the permissions to the keypair file is not only readable by you. As mentioned above.

Copy the output to the remote servers .ssh/authorized_keys file.

Now you should be able to ssh to the remote server.

$ ssh -i /path_to_key_pair/my-key-pair.pem remoteuser@remotemachine

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-key-pairs.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-services-ec2-keypairs.html https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/new-user-accounts-linux-instance/