Creating an SSH Key

An SSH key is an access credential for the SSH (secure shell) network protocol. This authenticated and encrypted secure network protocol is used for remote communication between machines.

Follow these instructions to create or add SSH keys on Linux, MacOS & Windows.

Create a new key pair, if needed

To create an SSH Key, open a terminal and run the following command:

ssh-keygen

You will be prompted to save and name the key.

Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/USER/.ssh/id_rsa):

Next, you will be asked to create and confirm a passphrase for the key (highly recommended):

Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:

This will generate two files, by default called id_rsa and id_rsa.pub. Next, add this public key.

Add the public key

Copy and paste the contents of the .pub file, typically id_rsa.pub, into the SSH Public Key field.

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

You don't need to use this command - you can simply right-click the id_rsa.pub file and open it with your favorite IDE and copy the contents from there into the SSH Public Key field.

Your public (.pub) SSH Key should look something like this: