The Putty Problem...

and also to show that there really IS a collective...

Here's a solution to Using Putty SSH Keys to Authenticate Automatically

taken from : click here

The problem with setting this all up that I've had in the past is that the keys generated by PuttyGen don't seem to work by simply copying and pasting them into my .ssh/authorized_keys file. I've had other issues in getting this set up in the past which I won't get into, but they surround other versioning and configuration settings that I have for my particular ssh implementations.

The solution is very easy, and I found it on this Open SSH Installation guide. I wouldn't be surprised if it has made it's way into Simon's documentation, but back when I actually did RTFM, it wasn't there.

• Step 1) Generate your Private/Public key using puttygen. (just run puttygen, you don't need instructions)
• Step 2) Save your private key somewhere that makes sense.
• Step 3) Save your public key to a file also that makes sense. You probably will want to have it around for other purposes later anyways.
• Step 4) Open up an ssh session with putty. Paste your public key into a new file. (right click is paste in putty.) Paste the whole thing from ---- BEGIN SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ---- to ---- END SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----
• Step 5) Run this command:

  ssh-keygen -i -f putty-public-key > openssh-public-key

  where putty-public-key is your existing public key file and openssh-public-key is the file you want your newly transformed key to sit.

• Step 6) Either copy the openssh-public-key file to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys OR append the key in that file to your existing ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file.
• Step 7) Start up Pageant. Right click the icon in the task bar and choose Add Key. Once the key is added, start up putty and you are all set.