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Not sure what's causing this error - trying to convert my private ssh key to .ppk format within cPanel for SFTP via filezilla.

I generated my keys using the following command:

 ssh-keygen -t rsa

This is the beginning of my key - is this incorrect?

-----BEGIN OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----
b3BlbnNzaC1rZXktdjEAAAAACmFlczI1Ni1jdHIAAAAGYmNyeXB0AAAAGAAAABDUEyp40b
Filth
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  • What PuTTYgen version are you using? – u1686_grawity Oct 02 '19 at 10:51
  • I'm not using putty gen - just mac terminal to generate SSH keys. – Filth Oct 02 '19 at 10:52
  • Well, the only tool for converting keys from/to .ppk format is PuTTYgen, and even your post title says "puttygen"... – u1686_grawity Oct 02 '19 at 10:53
  • Within cPanel under SSH section, it gives you the option to convert keys to .ppk - going through this process I get the above error. I was wondering if there was an issue with the way I had generated my keys. – Filth Oct 02 '19 at 10:54

1 Answers1

8

The file is correct, but that's the "new" OpenSSH private key format introduced in version 6.5 (made default in 7.8). It is only supported by PuTTY starting with version 0.68.

Because your server tries to perform the conversion using an older PuTTYgen version which doesn't support this format yet, you need to tell ssh-keygen to output keys using the older "PEM" format:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -m PEM

Or convert an existing key using the "password change" mode:

ssh-keygen -p -f ~/my_id_rsa -m PEM

Finally, you could also install PuTTY on your own system and use it to convert keys – if you get a sufficiently new version, it'll recognize both ssh-keygen formats:

puttygen ~/my_id_rsa -o ~/my_id.ppk -O private

See other posts for more detail:

u1686_grawity
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