Objective

To create an AWS SSH Key by using the "Import" feature to use your own RSA key pair.

Table of Contents

Prerequisites

• 'actor' user role privileges
• valid RSA keypair  (See Create an RSA Key Pair)

Steps

Go to Clouds -> AWS Region -> SSH Keys. Click the Import action button.

Provide a name of the SSH Key and the public key material for your key pair and click Import.

Important!  The SSH Key that you just generated does not have private key material like other EC2 SSH Keys.  You may not be able to successfully use the SSH key inside the Dashboard/API to log into instances depending on the RightImage version that's being used as well as your Managed SSH preferences.  v4 RightImages require that the private key material be present in order to access the instance and successfully execute scripts.

You will not be able to successfully launch an instance using a v4 RightImage because the private key material is missing.  However, you can use the key pair for instances using v5 RightImages since Managed SSH is used for authentication purposes. 

One of the benefits of using the Import key pair feature is that you can use the same RSA key pair in multiple AWS regions, unlike standard EC2 SSH Keys.  Simply repeat the import process using the same RSA key pair to create valid EC2 SSH Keys in other regions in which you would like to use the same key pair.

See also