So you need to move your mouse around in the program window until the progress bar is full. This will generate a pair of keys (aka a keypair) one private (which you keep on your computer somewhere safe and never share with anyone!) and one public (which you will upload to your server).Ĭreation of a unique and truly random keypair requires user interaction.
Unless you know what you are doing, it is recommend you leave them as they are.Ĭlick the Generate button to start the generation process. The standalone executable (puttygen.exe) can be run directly otherwise unzip or install the software depending on your download choice from above.Įventually (or straight away if you launch puttygen.exe) you will find yourself on the key generating screen.
You can download the individual executables or a zip or installer (which includes all the PuTTY tools). But to generate a SSH keypair (AKA 'SSH keys') you will need PuTTYgen (puttygen.exe). For general SSH connection you only require the single main PuTTY executable (putty.exe). To connect via SSH from Windows we recommend PuTTY. Inspired by a doc from Linode - This is a total rewrite to comply with the original work's CC BY-ND 3.0 license.
