About SSH Keys
SSH Keys
A Secure Shell (SSH) Key is a pair of strings that are used to encrypt and unencrypt messages. Each key pair has two parts, a public key and a private key. Strings that are encoded using the private key can only be decoded by the public key, and vice versa. SSH Keys can be used to provide security for many applications, but in the context of Jetstream2 and other cloud providers they are used to establish a secure connection between a user and a cloud instance.
SSH Keys on Jetstream2
When you create an instance on Jetstream2, the default user account exouser is added to the instance.
This user is given a complex initial password, which you can access through the Exosphere dashboard
and use to log in to the instance from your computer.
An alternative to authenticating with a password is to use an SSH key pair,
which provides excellent security and a convenient workflow for many operations.
When you create an instance through the Exosphere dashboard,
you will be given the option to provide the public half of an SSH key pair to be used with the instance.
If you provide the public key, it will be added to the known users
list of the default user during the instance creation.
This will allow you to authenticate yourself when logging in by providing the private half of the key pair.
If you choose not to automatically include a public key in the instance at creation,
you still have the option of doing it manually at a later time.
If you choose to have Exosphere add a public key to your instance, it is best to upload that key before beginning the process of creating an instance. Before uploading a key, note that Jetstream2 only accepts SSH keys that use the RSA algorithm. The following pages will walk you through how to: