SSH private key authentication with WinSCP and PuTTY Gen

Simplify your login process by using SSH keys for authentication when you are connecting to your server.

1st step is to run the PuTTYGen software and generate a key.

Save the private key to a file.

Next, login into you server through SSH and create "~/.ssh" directory if it doesn't exists.

chmod the directory to 700.

[applmgr@vm-centos7 ~]$ cd ~
[applmgr@vm-centos7 ~]$ mkdir -p .ssh
[applmgr@vm-centos7 ~]$ chmod 700 .ssh
[applmgr@vm-centos7 ~]$ ls -al
total 12
drwx------. 6 applmgr applmgr 119 Jul  9 20:27 .
drwxr-xr-x. 4 root    root     36 Jul  9 20:05 ..
-rw-r--r--. 1 applmgr applmgr  18 Oct 31  2018 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--. 1 applmgr applmgr 193 Oct 31  2018 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--. 1 applmgr applmgr 231 Oct 31  2018 .bashrc
drwxrwxr-x. 3 applmgr applmgr  18 Jul  9 20:06 .cache
drwxrwxr-x. 3 applmgr applmgr  18 Jul  9 20:06 .config
drwxr-xr-x. 4 applmgr applmgr  39 Jul  4 19:01 .mozilla
drwx------. 2 applmgr applmgr   6 Jul  9 20:27 .ssh

Create "authorized_keys" if it doesn't exists.

chmod it to 600 and edit the file, in my example, using "vi"

[applmgr@vm-centos7 ~]$ cd .ssh/
[applmgr@vm-centos7 .ssh]$ touch authorized_keys
[applmgr@vm-centos7 .ssh]$ chmod 600 authorized_keys
[applmgr@vm-centos7 .ssh]$ vi authorized_keys

Copy and paste (or add new line) the content of the public key into this file.

Save the file and now run your WinSCP, enter hostname, username and click "Advanced ..."

Under "SSH" > "Authentication", check the "Allow agent forwarding", and select the privates key file that you've saved just now.

And "login".