# Manually generating your SSH key in Windows

## Manually generating your SSH key in Windows

On Windows, you can create SSH keys in many ways. This document explains how to use two SSH applications, PuTTY and Git Bash.

### PuTTY <a href="#putty" id="putty"></a>

[PuTTY](http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/) is an SSH client for Windows. You can use PuTTY to generate SSH keys. PuTTY is a free open-source terminal emulator that functions much like the Terminal application in macOS in a Windows environment. This section shows you how to manually generate and upload an SSH key when working with PuTTY in the Windows environment.

### About PuTTY <a href="#about-putty" id="about-putty"></a>

PuTTY is an SSH client for Windows that you will use to generate your SSH keys. You can download PuTTY from [www.chiark.greenend.org.uk](http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/).

When you install the PuTTY client, you also install the PuTTYgen utility. PuTTYgen is what you will use to generate your SSH key for a Windows VM.

{% hint style="info" %}
This page gives you basic information about using PuTTY and PuTTYgen to log in to your provisioned machine. For more information on PuTTY, see the PuTTY documentation
{% endhint %}

### Generating an SSH key <a href="#generating-an-ssh-key" id="generating-an-ssh-key"></a>

To generate an SSH key with PuTTYgen, follow these steps:

1. Open the PuTTYgen program.
2. For **Type of key to generate**, select **SSH-2 RSA**.
3. Click the **Generate** button.
4. Move your mouse in the area below the progress bar. When the progress bar is full, PuTTYgen generates your key pair.
5. Type a passphrase in the **Key passphrase** field. Type the same passphrase in the **Confirm passphrase** field. You can use a key without a passphrase, but this is not recommended.
6. Click the **Save private key** button to save the private key.  You **must** save the private key. You will need it to connect to your machine.
7. Right-click in the text field labeled **Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized\_keys file** and choose **Select All**.
8. Right-click again in the same text field and choose **Copy**.

### Importing your SSH key <a href="#importing-your-ssh-key" id="importing-your-ssh-key"></a>

Now you must import the copied SSH key to the portal.

1. After you copy the SSH key to the clipboard, return to [your account page](https://portal.mnx.io/account/ssh/).
2. Click **Create SSH Key** and paste your SSH key into the Public Key field.
3. In the **Name** field, provide a name or description of the key.
4. **Submit** to add the key. It will now appear in your table of keys under SSH Keys.