Registering a User's Public SSH Key - AWS OpsWorks

Registering a User's Public SSH Key

Important

AWS OpsWorks Stacks is no longer accepting new customers. Existing customers will be able to use the OpsWorks console, API, CLI, and CloudFormation resources as normal until May 26, 2024, at which time they will be discontinued. To prepare for this transition, we recommend you transition your stacks to AWS Systems Manager as soon as possible. For more information, see AWS OpsWorks Stacks End of Life FAQs and Migrating your AWS OpsWorks Stacks applications to AWS Systems Manager Application Manager.

There are two ways to register a user's public SSH key:

  • An administrative user can assign a public SSH key to one or more users and provide them with the corresponding private key.

  • An administrative user can enable self-management for one or more users.

    Those users can then specify their own public SSH key.

For more information how administrative users can enable self management or assign public keys to users, see Editing User Settings.

Connecting to Linux-based instances by using SSH in a PuTTY terminal requires additional steps. For more information, see Connecting to Your Linux Instance from Windows Using PuTTY and Troubleshooting Connecting to Your Instance in the AWS documentation.

The following describes how a user with self-management enabled can specify their public key.

To specify your SSH public key
  1. Create an SSH key pair.

    The simplest approach is to generate the key pair locally. For more information see How to Generate Your Own Key and Import It to Amazon EC2.

    Note

    If you use PuTTYgen to generate your key pair, copy the public key from the Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file box. Clicking Save Public Key saves the public key in a format that is not supported by MindTerm.

  2. Sign into the AWS OpsWorks Stacks console as an IAM user with self-management enabled.

    Important

    If you sign in as an account owner, or as an IAM user that does not have self-management enabled, AWS OpsWorks Stacks does not display My Settings. If you are an administrative user or the account owner, you can instead specify SSH keys by going to the Users page and editing the user settings.

  3. Select My Settings, which displays the settings for the signed-in user.

    
                        My Settings link in OpsWorks dashboard.
  4. On the My Settings page, click Edit.

    
                        Edit button in My Settings page.
  5. In the Public SSH Key box, enter your SSH public key, and then click Save.

    
                        Public SSH Key box in My Settings page.
Important

To use the built-in MindTerm SSH client to connect to Amazon EC2 instances, a user must be signed in as an IAM user and have a public SSH key registered with AWS OpsWorks Stacks. For more information, see Using the Built-in MindTerm SSH Client.