How to work with SSH keys

This page describes how to obtain an SSH key for public cloud and how to add it to your user Abiquo account.

SSH keys to create and access VMs in public cloud

Access to a virtual machine in many public cloud providers, such as AWS, requires an RSA key pair. For example, see http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/AccessingInstances.html:

When you deploy a VM, Abiquo launches it in the provider with a key pair. To connect to the VM, you will need the private key file that corresponds to the key pair that was selected when the instance was launched

Abiquo stores a public key for a user and automatically adds it to virtual machines at deploy time. The user must keep the corresponding private key in a safe place and use it to access the virtual machine.

Generate your own key pair

Generate keys on Linux

You can create an RSA key for SSH in Linux using

ssh-keygen -t rsa
ssh-add id_rsa

By default the keys will be saved in a folder such as ~/.ssh and the public key in a file such as ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.

Generate keys on AWS

For AWS, you can generate your own key pair or get AWS to generate one for you. See http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/generating-a-keypair.html

Add your public key to Abiquo

To save a public key in Abiquo:

Edit an Abiquo user who will use the public datacenter. There are two ways to edit a user:
1. In Users view, by selecting the enterprise name, then the user name and clicking the edit button OR
2. If allowed in your installation, cloud users can edit their user details by clicking on the user name in the top right-hand corner of the screen
Enter the RSA public key for the user
The user should keep the private key in a safe place and supply it to access their virtual machines