Once you have ensured all users have an SSH key setup you can disable password based authenitcation for SSH. *Īuthenticating with public key for key login: Sun Sep 1 16:10:35 2019 from ~]$

| * evidence from such monitoring to law enforcement officials. | * evidence of criminal activity, system personnel may provide the * | * and is advised that if such monitoring reveals possible * | * Anyone using this system expressly consents to such monitoring * | * this system may be monitored and recorded by system personnel. | * This system is for the use of authorized users only. Pre-authentication banner message from server: Then enter the IP / Hostname of the server you want to connect to and press open.Īt this point you should be able to enter your username and then be prompted for your passphase for the SSH Key rather than the password associated with your CentOS user. This step is optional but I then save this configuration as 'Default - WithSSHKeys' so I don't have to do this again. Open a new PuTTY window and type navigate to Connect -> SSH -> Auth and browse to the location of your private key file. We should now be able to connect to our server. SSH -> Auth and browse to the location of your private key file. If you don't have PuTTY installed just whack 'putty' into a search engine of your preference and you should find it. If you don't have PuTTYgen you normally get it when you install PuTTY. I am going to do this using PuTTY however other tools are available. Once we have tested this we will then disable password authentication on the server. We will then take the public key and install it on your CentOS server so that you can use this for SSH connections. So what were going to do in this ramblings is run through the steps needed to generate a public/private key pair on your Windows 10 PC. The outputs below come from the following setup. If you get this procedure wrong there is a very good chance you might end up locked out of your server. Warning: This is one of those procedures you need to fully understand before implementing it in a production environment. You can also protect your private key (this is the one you need to keep to yourself) with a passphrase that must be entered before the key can be used. SSH Keys From Windows10 to CentOS7 is for when you want your SSH connections to be that bit more secure! Instead of relying on passwords to authenticate your session you will use a public/private key pair.

Generate ssh key windows 10