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Step 2: Create an SSH key

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This article is part of the Admin Setup (Step-by-Step) guide.

 

An SSH key is a means to securely access remote servers, such as the one you'll be setting up on DigitalOcean to host your wallets and admin.

Like bitcoin wallets, SSH uses public and private keys:

  • Your public SSH key is what you'll provide DigitalOcean in order to authorize access to your server.
  • Your private SSH key remains on your computer and is required to log into your server.

 

Video Overview

Click on your computer's OS below and follow the directions on creating an SSH key pair:

 

 

Detailed steps

Below are the steps to create your SSH key, click on each tab to display the step's content, and read it thoroughly before following:

1. Creating an SSH keypair   2. Setting SSH key password   3. Obtaining public SSH key

Open your computer's Terminal:

  • On macOS, this can be found by typing 'terminal' in Spotlight, or under 'Applications > Utilities > Terminal'
  • On Windows, by typing 'command prompt' in the search bar.

Type the following command and hit Enter:

ssh-keygen

You'll then be prompted for where to save the new key. If you've never created an SSH key before on this computer, hit Enter without typing anything to save it to the default location.

Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/username/.ssh/id_rsa):

⚠️ NOTE: If you already created an SSH key on this computer and you save a new one to the default location, you'll receive a warning first, as you'd be overwriting your existing key. Overwriting an existing key will cause you to lose access to any servers you used the key with, if you haven't backed up that key elsewhere.

After hitting enter, you’ll be prompted for an optional passphrase that encrypts the private SSH key. (This is like adding a password to protect your bitcoin wallet keys. In this case, it protects the keys to access your server droplet, where your machine's wallets are stored.)

 

Step-By-Step instructions

Continue to next tab '2. Setting SSH key password' as per above.

 

We strongly recommend setting a passphrase.

Write it down in a secure spot, as losing this passphrase will at least temporarily lock you out of your server droplet.

Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:

⚠️ NOTE: Nothing will appear in the terminal as you enter your passphrase. This is intentional. You're still typing though.

You now have a public and private key that you'll use to authenticate with the server droplet you'll create.

The screen output will look like this:

Your identification has been saved in /Users/username/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /Users/username/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
a9:49:EX:AM:PL:E3:3e:a9:de:4e:77:11:58:b6:90:26 username@mac-mini
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ RSA 2048]----+
|         ..o     |
|      E o= .     |
|      o. o       |
|        ..       |
|       ..S       |
|       o o.      |
|       =o.+.     |
|      . =++..    |
|      o=++.      |
+-----------------+

 

Step-By-Step instructions

Continue to next tab '3. Obtaining public SSH key' as per above.

 

After generating an SSH keypair, run the following command in your terminal to display your public key:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Select and copy (Ctrl+C on your keyboard) the output to a text file/notepad, as we'll use it when creating a DigitalOcean droplet in the next steps.

 

Step-By-Step instructions

After creating and copying your SSH key as per above, continue with Step 3 in this section.

 

Continue to the next step ⮕

 

 

 

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