Oracle by Example brandingSetting up SSH Key Pairs in a Published VM in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Ravello Service

section 0Before You Begin

This tutorial shows how you can generate key pairs and SSH (Secure Shell) into a published VM from a Windows machine. This tutorial takes approximately 20 minutes to complete.

Background

Oracle Infrastructure Cloud Ravello Service instances use an SSH key pair to authenticate a remote user accessing from an external device. A key pair file contains a private key and public key. The public key is saved on the VM and you will save the private key on your computer.

What Do You Need?

  • An activated subscription to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Ravello Service
  • Your login credentials
  • An SSH client, PuTTY
  • A key generator tool, PuTTYGen

section 1Generate a Key Pair

  1. Sign in to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Ravello Service.
  2. In the Applications page, click +Create Application.
  3. In the Create Application dialog box, enter a name for your application (for example, MySampleAPP), and click Create.
    Create Application dialog with MySampleApp in the Name field
    Description of the illustration create_application.png
  4. In the Canvas workspace, drag and drop CentOS 6.3 vanilla VM from the VM Library to the workspace. If you do not see the predefined VMs in the left pane, click Plus button next to Actions to get a list of VMs.
  5. On the right pane, click the General tab. Under Cloud Init Configuration, select Create a Key Pair in the Key Pair drop-down list.
    Key pair drop-down menu
    Description of the illustration create_keypair.png
  6. In the Key Pairs dialog box, select the Generate Key Pair option for the key pair assignment.
  7. Enter a name for the key pair (for example, demoKeyPair), and click Create. When you generate a key pair, the private key is downloaded as a file in the .pem format. Save the demoKeyPair.pem file on your desktop. The public key is saved in the VM.

    Save the key pair configuration.

  8. Return to the MySampleApp application you created earlier and click Publish.
  9. In the Publish Application dialog box, leave the default selection for the optimization method and click Publish. It may take a few minutes to publish the application.
    Publishing the application
    Description of the illustration publish_application.png

    10. You cannot change the key pairs after you publish the application.

  10. Click Console in the Summary tab to open a VNC session and verify if the VM is up and running.
    Console
    Description of the illustration console.png

section 5Convert Keys to the PuTTy (.ppk) Format

The key pair was saved in the .pem format. Use PuTTYGen to convert the .pem to .ppk format. You can then use PuTTY and the new SSH key pair you just created with Ravello to connect to your Published VM.

  1. Open PuTTYGen and select File > Load Private Key.
  2. Browse to your Desktop and open the demoKeyPair.pem file. Note that by default, PuTTYGen displays only the files with extension .ppk. Select All Files from the drop down list to view all file types.
  3. Click Save private key. When prompted to indicate whether you want to save the key without a pass phrase, click Yes and save it on your desktop as demoKeyPair. The key is saved in the .ppk format and is used to connect to your VM using PuTTY SSH.
    PuTTyGen converting .pem to .ppk format
    Description of the illustration putty_key_generator.png

section 6SSH into the Published VM Using your Windows Machine

  1. Return to Ravello and the MySampleApp application, and select the CentOS 6.3 vanilla VM. In the Summary tab, note down the public DNS name of CentOS 6.3 vanilla. For example, centos63vanilla-mysampleapp-2r1whyjx.srv.ravcloud.com.
  2. Open PuTTY and SSH to the public DNS name that you noted in the previous step.
    1. Start PuTTY. The PuTTY Configuration window is displayed, showing the Session panel.
    2. In the Host Name (or IP address) field, enter the DNS name in this format: <user name>@DNS name. For example, ravello@centos63vanilla-mysampleapp-2r1whyjx.srv.ravcloud.com.
    3. Confirm that the Connection type option is set to SSH.
    4. On the left side, in the Category tree, expand SSH if necessary and then click Auth.
    5. In the Auth panel, under the Private key file for authentication field, click Browse. Navigate and open the private key file that was saved. The private key matches the public key that is associated with your instance.
      Open the private key
      Description of the illustration putty_configuration.png
    6. On the left side, click Session. In the session panel, under Saved Sessions, enter a name and Save the session.
      Try opening the connection. If this is the first time you are connecting to an instance, the PuTTY Security Alert window is displayed, prompting you to confirm the public key. Click Yes to continue connecting.

      Now you are connected to the published VM.

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