Generating an SSH Private Key

Use the following guidelines to generate a private/public key-pair for use with Robo-FTP if you don’t already have one.

1. Generate a public-key / private-key-pair.

Robo-FTP's built-in key generator creates a private key with a corresponding public key that is compatible with OpenSSH servers. If, for example, you chose to name your private key file MySSHKey then the corresponding public key file created by Robo-FTP will be named MySSHKey.openssh.

You can also use any other compatible SSH key generator utility such as the one distributed with the commercial product by SSH Communications Security (http://www.ssh.com) or the one distributed with the free OpenSSH (http://www.openssh.org).

2. Let Robo-FTP know about your private key.

If you generated your key using Robo-FTP, then it already knows about your private key.  If you used another key generator utility, you need to tell Robo-FTP about it by browsing to it using the Configure SSH menu in the Robo-FTP Configurator.  You can also specify a unique SSH key for each Managed Site in the Configurator.

3. Let the remote server know about your public key.

The contents of your public key file must be added to a file on the remote server which, in turn, is used by the SSH server software to determine which keys to use for authentication. Often this file is called authorized_keys or authorized_keys2, and is stored in the .ssh sub-directory of your home directory on the server. Check with the remote server's system administrator to arrange the installation of your public key on the server.

See Also: Configurator SSH Menu, About SFTP