So I made the switch from windows to the latest manjaro KDE but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to import/manage/use my remote server ssh keys.
On windows I would convert pem private keys to ppk files with puttygen.exe and manage them in pageant.exe, which is the default keyring that comes with putty on windows.
Manjaro seems to point me towards seahorse but seahorse won’t let me import any of my old pem keys. If I go to seahorse > import from file > select the ssh key pem file Seahorse will display information about key but the actual import button is grayed out?
The “pem” keys I’m try to import/use are just the normal ssh keys that AWS EC2 spits out when spinning up a new server instance. So the file content of these keys just looks like this…
I’m kind of pulling my hair out on this one, I’ve done a bunch of googling about this issue and I asked in the Manjaoro matrix rooms but I haven’t coming up with any solution so far.
Until I figure this out I keep having to boot back into my old windows OS just to be able to work.
where KEYFILE is just that file that begins with “-------- BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY ------”
For some more in depth knowledge google for ssh, or use man ssh in the terminal. SSH is integral to linux so there is no putty or such thing. Its a command prompt program configured like all others with configuration file(s)
For connections often used I suggest that
e.g. for a server called server1.mydomain.com I would have a file called “id_rsa_priv-server01” inside of ~/.ssh/ containing
than according to that one server I would add to the “config” file inside of .ssh the following snippet:
host server1 server1.mydomain.com
HostName IP.ADDRESS.OF.THE.SERVER
Port PORT_SSH_LISTENS_TO (commonly 22)
User USER_ON_THE_REMOTE_MACHINE
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_priv-server01
AddressFamily inet
so with this config I now can connect to the server issuing ssh server1 in the terminal. Otherwise I would have to specivy the key-file every time I connect.
I am quite certain that seahorse does not, and is not indended to manage keys for SSH; But please do not take that as true - I am not certain as stated.
Seahorse is a GUI for gnome-keyring, so you’d need to install and configure that, however since you’re on KDE, kwallet may be a better choice but I’m not sure if it does what you want or even if it has a gui.
Just found muon (formally snowflake, also the name of a db hence the name change), which is a GUI SSH client with the ability to manage keys. No idea what it’s like though. There’s an orphaned package in the AUR under snowflake.
You don’ t need no gui for ssh-keys.
You may use a ssh-agent, and then just type ssh-add ~/.ssh/the-name-of-the-keyfile in console (then the key is unlocked and directly useable until you log out)
