Login SSH with .ppk file on Ubuntu Terminal

Question

I have a production server. To login to the server I must use a .ppk file.

How to login with Ubuntu Terminal and .ppk file?

I tried this :

ssh -i location/file.ppk username@server-ip

but it is showing an error message.

Possible duplicate of Unable to connect to remote server via SSH (requires public key) — Jakuje, Aug 31 '16 at 07:27

score 131 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 27 '17 at 17:23

131

If you only have .ppk file then it would be useful to create a .pem file and then connect to your server using that.

In you Ubuntu computer, install putty-tools with the following command:

sudo apt-get install putty-tools

Now convert your .ppk file to .pem using the following command:

puttygen yourkey.ppk -O private-openssh -o yourkey.pem

Set the proper permission to use the .pem file with following command:

chmod 400 yourkey.pem

Now connect to your server using the below command:

ssh -i yourkey.pem serverusername@server-ip

Hope it helps.

answered Sep 27 '17 at 17:23

Manish Jangir

1,431

3

Highest answer to mention .pem and permissions. – mckenzm Apr 24 '18 at 06:20
for me, @finn answer can't solve, but this could solve my problem, thanks. – Budi Mulyo Feb 25 '20 at 07:35
This should be higher vote and accepted answer – Bariq Dharmawan Oct 01 '20 at 00:28
This answer shows that a little extra details and well written/formated answer is way more helpful than a plain syntax or documentation link – Abdul Rehman Dec 14 '21 at 08:40
Thanks it's working for me. – MK Patel Mar 02 '22 at 07:08

score 75 · Answer 2 · answered May 09 '17 at 15:31

75

You can convert a .ppk file in ubuntu with installing putty-tools. So

apt-get install putty-tools

Then youn can convert the .ppk file with puttygen to OpenSSH's format like so:

puttygen <the_key.ppk> -O private-openssh -o <new_openssh_key>.key

answered May 09 '17 at 15:31

Finn

1,426
12
8

2

If you found this solution as a Mac user, you won't find any putty-tools. Simply do brew install putty and you will have puttygen, eventually. – Martin Braun Feb 16 '21 at 15:23

score 25 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:39

25

.ppk is a file format used by Windows program PuTTYgen.

You can try the following procedure published by Kaleb Pederson on StackOverflow:

puttygen supports exporting your private key to an OpenSSH compatible format. You can then use OpenSSH tools to recreate the public key.
Open PuttyGen

Click Load

Load your private key

Go to Conversions->Export OpenSSH and export your private key

Copy your private key to ~/.ssh/id_dsa (or id_rsa).
Create the RFC 4716 version of the public key using ssh-keygen
ssh-keygen -e -f ~/.ssh/id_dsa > ~/.ssh/id_dsa_com.pub
Convert the RFC 4716 version of the public key to the OpenSSH format:
ssh-keygen -i -f ~/.ssh/id_dsa_com.pub > ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub

edited May 23 '17 at 12:39

Community

1

answered Aug 31 '16 at 02:45

techraf

3,316

You can do this "off system" if you cannot get putty-tools. – mckenzm Apr 24 '18 at 06:21
uudecode failed when trying to convert ssh-keygen -i -f ~/.ssh/id_dsa_com.pub > ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub – Konrad Grzyb Feb 07 '22 at 18:33

score 14 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 24 '18 at 07:16

14

Install the putty tools, if you don`t have on Linux:

sudo apt-get install putty-tools

Generate the pem file run the following command:

puttygen keyname.ppk -O private-openssh -o keyname.pem

Place the pemkey.pem file in your ~/.ssh directory:

cp keyname.pem ~/.ssh

Set the pem file to have the proper permissions:

chmod 400 keyname.pem

Thats it.

edited Apr 24 '18 at 07:16

Jeremy

2,846

answered Apr 24 '18 at 05:50

Raunaque Zamir

141

Login SSH with .ppk file on Ubuntu Terminal

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