It Supports different types of Network Protocols such as SSH, FTP, SCP, Telnet. It is used as SSH. Putty for Mac 6.0.0. However, there is an alternative way to install PuTTY on Mac OS. Cyberduck is a widely used Mac OS SSH Client. Once PuTTY installed on the Mac OS, a user can convert PuTTY derived private key format to OpenSSH. Step 2: Now when you are at the Download page, click on “.exe” file, i.e. Putty-0.64-installer as I did, thus no need to extract it as in the case of the zip file. Step 3: Once you click on it, you would be asked to “Save File”, click on it. Step 4: When downloading is complete, go to “Downloads” section and open that “.exe” file.
Searching around to download Puttygen? Then you have come to the right place. In this post, I’ll give you the brief guide to Download Puttygen and using it on your Windows, Linux or Mac operating system. I’ll also give you the direct link to Download Putty gen .exe file. So, read this post carefully to know about all of this.
Table of Contents
- 3 How to Use Puttygen on Windows
- 5 Download Puttygen for Linux
What is Puttygen?
Puttygen is a tool used for generating Public and Private SSH keys for servers. You can create the SSH keys with putty gen, and it’s the primary function of it. Putty gen generates the keys in its file format which is .ppk format. But you can also convert the .ppk format to any other format easily. Putty gen is officially available for Windows, Linux & Mac. The Windows version of Putty gen is the .exe format. You can install on your Windows PC and Run it. It has a GUI (Graphical User Interface) version for Windows. But Putty gen for Linux or Mac is command based. You have to use some commands to use Putty gen on Linux or Mac OS.
Putty gen is a handy tool if you work with servers. It can generate different types of SSH keys for your server and make it more secure. If you are using Putty, which is a very popular SSH client, then you can generate the keys for Putty with the help of Puttygen.
Download Puttygen for Windows
Putty gen comes with the Putty software itself. That means you can access Putty gen from Putty itself. But if you want to download only the Putty gen for Windows, you can do it too. Using Putty gen on Windows is not a big task. You have to download the Puttygen.exe for Windows and the open it. It doesn’t require any installation. You can use it without installing it on your Windows PC. You can use it on any Windows version. i.e., Windows 7, Windows8/8.1 or Windows 10. No matter which version of Windows OS you are using, you can use Puttygen on any Windows PC.
Note: If you have 64-Bit of Windows you have to download the 64-Bit of Putty gen. If you have 32-Bit of Windows, download the 32-Bit of Putty gen. I’ve provided both version’s download link below. You can directly download it from there.
How to Use Puttygen on Windows
There are two different ways of using Putty gen on Windows. You can either open it from Putty, or you can open the Puttygen.exe file itself. I’ve guided both the ways below.
Open from Putty
If you’ve already installed Putty on your Windows, then you can go to Windows>Start Menu>All Programs>Putty>Puttygen and click on that. And It’ll start.
Open the Puttygen.exe File
Open your Download folder on your Windows PC. There you’ll see the Putty gen exe file. Just right-click on it and select open. It’ll start Putty gen.
Now, you’ve successfully started Putty key generator, just click on “Generate” to generate your first SSH key with Putty gen. You can also select the Parameters and Number of Bits in a generated key.
If you already have a Generated SSH key, just click on “LOAD”.
After generating the SSH key, just click on “Save public Key” or “Save Private Key” and select your SSH key type.
Download Puttygen for Mac
You can access Putty gen with Mac by using command lines. Just go to Utility option from the Top menu and select the SSH connection Supported terminal for remote connections.
You can also install Putty gen in other ways.
- Homebrew: Use the Command- “brew”command.sudo brew install putty to Install Putty
- MacPorts: Use the command- sudo port install putty to install. And create the shortcut by using the following commands- desktop.cp /opt/local/bin/putty ~/Desktop/PuTTY
Download Puttygen for Linux
You can access Putty gen on your Linux with your Linux terminal. You have to download the Putty tools to use Puttygen on your Linux operating system. Use the below command line to Download & install Putty gen on Debian Linux.
sudo aptitude install putty-tools
How to Generate Key Pair for Authentication in Linux?
Just use the below commands in your command terminal to generate Key Pair for Authentication.
PuTTYgen -t RSA -b 2048 -C “user@host” -o keyfile.ppk
Where “user” is your Linux username and “host” is your Linux hostname. And “keyfile” is your SSH Keyfile name.
Some Important Command Lines for Putty in Linux
If you are using Putty on Linux for the first time, you need to know some vital commands in order to use Putty on Linux. I’ve given some commands with details below. Hope it’ll be helpful to you.
PuTTYgen [-t keytype [-b bits] [-q] | keyfile]
[-C new-comment] [-P]
[-O output-type | -p | -l | -L]
[-o output-file]
[-C new-comment] [-P]
[-O output-type | -p | -l | -L]
[-o output-file]
Where,
-keyfile is Name of existing key file to read when modifying an existing key.
-t keytype is the command Specifies to the type of a new key to generate. Acceptable values include rsa and dsa. rsa1 is also supported to generate legacy SSH-1 keys, but they should never be needed any more.
-b bits command Specifies the number of bits in the key. For DSA keys, 1024 is a decent size. For RSA keys, 2048 or even 4096 bits are recommended.
-q command Suppresses messages about progress during key generation.
-C new-comment command Specifies comment to describe the key. The comment does not impact the operation of the key. The comment can be specified for new keys or for existing keys to change their comment. Typically the comment would be used to identify the key owner, but since any value can be specified, it cannot really be relied upon.
-P is the command to Requests to change the key’s passphrase. The tool will prompt for a new passphrase. It is not possible to specify a passphrase on the command line. The passphrase will be used to encrypt the private key.
–old-passphrase-file file is the command to Specify a file from which to read the old passphrase of the key. This is only needed if manipulating an existing key that is protected by a passphrase.
–new-passphrase file command Specifies new passphrase for the key. This can be used when creating a new key, or with the -P option to change the passphrase.
-O output-type is the command Specify what to output. By default, the private key is output.
Final Words
So guys, hope you liked this post. If you liked, just share this post with your friends and family who needs to know about Puttygen. If you have any question or if you face any problem to Download Puttygen, just comment down in the comment section below and I’ll try my best to solve your problem.
PuTTYgen is a key generator tool for creating pairs of public and private SSH keys. It is one of the components of the open-source networking client PuTTY. Although originally written for Microsoft Windows operating system, it is now officially available for multiple operating systems including macOS, Linux. PuTTYgen.exe is the graphical tool on Windows OS. While on the other side, Linux OS has the only command-line version could be accessible using SSH commands.
- 1 Download PuTTYgen
- 1.1 Download PuTTYgen on Windows
- 1.2 Download PuTTYgen for Mac
- 1.3 Download PuTTYgen for Ubuntu/Linux
- 1.3.3 Types of Keys Supported on PuTTYgen
Puttygen aka Putty Key Generator
The key generation utility – PuTTYgen can create various public-key cryptosystems including Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA), Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), and Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA) keys.
The aforementioned public-key cryptosystems principally focus on secure data transmission and digital signatures.
Although PuTTYgen collects keys in its native file format i.e. .ppk files, the keys can easily be converted to any file format. For Windows, the software interface is PuTTYgen.exe, whereas, for Linux OS the command-line adaptation is available using SSH commands.
How to use PuTTYgen?
PuTTYgen is used to generate public or private key pair for creating SSH keys. Below is the complete guidance about how to generate RSA key in the Windows operating system:
- Once you install the PuTTY on your machine, you can easily run PuTTYgen. For the same, go to Windows -> Start Menu -> All Programs -> PuTTY -> PuTTYgen.
- You will see the PuTTY key generator dialog box on your screen
- You will find a “Generate” button in that dialog. Clicking on it will lead to generating the keys for you.
- Now you will need to add a unique key passphrase in the Key passphrase and Confirm passphrase field.
- Click on the “Save Public Key” and “Save Private Key” buttons to save your public and private keys.
- You will see the text starting with ssh-RSA in the Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file field which is located at the top of the window. Copy that entire text to your clipboard by pressing ctrl+c as you will require the key to paste on your clipboard in the public key tool of control panel or directly on the cloud server.
Various Ways to Use RSA Key Pair
RSA key pair generated through PuTTYgen is used in two various ways defined as below:
- To assign while creating a new cloud server
You can choose the public key from the given list of keys at the time of creating a cloud server. If you don’t find your key in that list, then first add and then assign it. - Assign to an existing cloud server
At the time of connecting to the cloud server, first of all, you need to tell PuTTY to use it for utilizing your newly created RSA key pair.
PuTTYgen being a component of the terminal emulator PuTTY does not have to be downloaded separately, hence, comes with the PuTTY .msi installation package. You can follow the simple steps to download PuTTYgen software for your system. That is the reason why you don’t need to download PuTTYgen separately. Once you download PuTTY software, you will be able to install and run PuTTYgen easily in no time. Below is the complete instruction about how to download and install PuTTY on Windows.
Apart from that, it is also integrated into third-party programs such as WinSCP installation package. Below you can find a complete PuTTYgen download and installation guide for all operating systems.
Download PuTTYgen on Windows
To download PuTTYgen the primary requisite is to acquire the copy of PuTTY installation package. For the 64-bit operating system, one must install the 64-bit version of PuTTY, i.e. putty-64bit-<version>-installer.msi.Similarly, for the 32-bit operating system, the respective 32-bit version of PuTTY, i.e. putty-<version>-installer.msi needs to be installed.
To get PuTTY, go to PuTTY Installation Download page, whereby the complete installation package will be available with setup instructions, installation guide, and download links to all other components of PuTTY such as putty.exe, pscp.exe, psftp.exe, puttytel.exe, plink.exe, pageant.exe and putty.zip.
Following the successful download of the PuTTY installation package. It is time to install the program. Go to How to install PuTTY on Windows, whereby you will find the step by step guidance for PuTTY installation for Windows operating system.
After successfully downloading and installing PuTTY on your Windows machine, you are just 2-3 clicks away to run PuTTYgen. Follow the below-given step by step guidance to run PuTTYgen:
Run PuTTYgen on Windows
To run PuTTYgen, Go to Windows -> Start Menu -> All Programs -> PuTTY -> PuTTYgen. You will see a window for the PuTTY Key Generator on your screen.
Voila! Now you can generate public or private key pair using PuTTYgen.
Download PuTTYgen for Mac
Below is the detailed guide to download PuTTYgen on Mac operating system. Mac OS has a built-in command-line SSH client known as Terminal. To utilize it, go to Finder and then opt for Go -> utilities from the top menu. After that find the terminal which supports SSH connections to remote servers.
However, to run PuTTYgen for mac, the first one must have to install PuTTY. There are multiple ways to install PuTTY, which are Homebrew or MacPorts. Both alternatives will also install the command-line of adaptations of PuTTYgen.
Ported PuTTY for Mac
Mac has the port of PuTTY which can be installed in various ways described as below:
- Installation using Homebrew:
First, install the ‘brew command line’ Once installed use the below-given command to install PuTTY:-sudo brew install putty
- Installation using MacPorts:
First of all, one must install MacPorts and then use the command-line to install PuTTY. Here is the command to install PuTTY via MacPortssudo port install putty
Additionally, a user can also add a shortcut to the desktop by writing the following command line–cp /opt/local/bin/putty ~/Desktop/PuTTY
Download Teamviewer
However, there is an alternative way to install PuTTY on Mac OS. Cyberduck is a widely used Mac OS SSH Client. Once PuTTY installed on the Mac OS, a user can convert PuTTY derived private key format to OpenSSH.
To convert the private key to standard PEM format, type the following command –
puttygen privatekey.ppk -O private-openssh -o privatekey.pem
You can also read the guide to convert .pem file to .ppk using puttygen.
Download PuTTYgen for Ubuntu/Linux
To download PuTTYgen for Ubuntu (Linux) operating system, a user to first install PuTTY. However, in some Linux distributions, the SSH key generation tool – PuTTYgen needs to be installed independently from the PuTTY client.
For example, Debian Linux requires the below-given code to install PuTTYgen:
Puttygen Download For Windows 10
sudo apt install putty-tools
Generate Key Pair for Authentication in Linux
To create the key pair for authentication in Linux use the below command:-
puttygen -t rsa -b 2048 -C 'user@host' -o keyfile.ppk
Various Command Line Options of PuTTY in Linux
Below are few important command line options in the Linux operating system for PuTTY:
PuTTYgen [-t keytype [-b bits] [-q] | keyfile]
[-C new-comment] [-P]
[-O output-type | -p | -l | -L]
[-o output-file]
[-C new-comment] [-P]
[-O output-type | -p | -l | -L]
[-o output-file]
Options:
- Keyfile – It is the name of the existing key file to read at the time of changing the current key.
- –t keytype – The command specifies the type of key to creating. Its acceptable values are RSA and dsa.rsa1.
- -b bits – This command specifies a total number of bit in a particular key. 1024 is the perfect size for DSA key, while 2048 or 4096 are the perfect size for RSA keys.
- –q – The command suppresses the message about progress at the time of key generation.
- -C new-comment – The command will specify the comment to describe the key. It can be used for the new and/or existing key. Key operation is not affected by a comment. However, it is used to recognize the key owner, it’s not reliable completely as any value can be applied to it.
- –P – Using the command will update the passphrase of a key. Passphrase helps to encrypt the private key. As passphrase can’t add or update on a command line, it prompts a new passphrase tool to alter it.
- –old-passphrase-file – The old password of the key remains in this file. The command is used when the key is protected by a passphrase.
- –new-passphrase file – This command prompts the new passphrase of the key. It comes in the action either at the time of generating a new key or while applying –P command to change the passphrase.
- -O output-type – This command defines what to give in output. By default, the private key is the output.
Thus, above are the prominent commands of PuTTYgen in Linux operating system. Besides that, there are many other commands available to perform various tasks from the command prompt in Linux at flank speed.
Types of Keys Supported on PuTTYgen
It is important to know the types of key PuTTYgen supports prior to using it. Below are the key types that it currently supports for SSH-2 and SSH-1 protocol:-
- SSH-1 protocol:- For SSH-1 only supports one key i.e. Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA)
- SSH-2 protocol: – SSH-2 supports multiple key types that include – Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) and Ed25519.
Download Putty For Mac Os
The above description is a detailed brief on downloading and running PuTTYgen on all major operating systems. For further details please check the Download PuTTY page.