Fri
08
Jul
2011
Public Key Authentication for Users
Here's a brief, illustrated walkthrough to jumpstart SilverSHielD administrator who need to create users that can perform public key authentication.
First of all, you will need a free software called PuTTYGen. You can download it here.
Launch PuTTYGen and generate a keypair. Save public key to a TXT file and save private key to a PPK file as shown in the picture.
Open the public key (TXT file) and copy/paste the full contents of it into the user profile in SilverSHielD.
Don't forget to tick the "Allow PublicKey Authentication" check box and to save your user database after the operation, unless you are working in auto-save mode.
Run WinSCP (or your favorite SFTP client) and configure it like in this screenshot.
You will notice that no password is needed, only specify username and the private key file you previously exported from PuTTYGen.
Now your SFTP client can connect to the SilverSHielD server; in the screenshot you can see out WinSCP listing the contents of the root directory.
But, as of version 2.2.3.88, the SilverSHielD management console integrates a button to generate a key-pair from within the console itself. The public key is automatically stored in the server configuration, while the private key is exported (saved) on disk in PuTTY format, thus making it possible to use with every SSH/SFTP client (like WinSCP, for instance).
As a good practice, please make sure you always have the latest version of SilverSHielD installed in your system.
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