The key files are stored in the ~/.ssh directory unless specified otherwise with the -ssh-dest-key-path option. If you use the Azure CLI to create your VM with the az vm create command, you can optionally generate SSH public and private key files using the -generate-ssh-keys option. You can also create key pairs with the Azure CLI with the az sshkey create command, as described in Generate and store SSH keys. The following command creates an SSH key pair using RSA encryption and a bit length of 4096: ssh-keygen -m PEM -t rsa -b 4096 If an SSH key pair with the same name exists in the given location, those files are overwritten. You can specify a different location, and an optional password ( passphrase) to access the private key file. By default, these files are created in the ~/.ssh directory. Use the ssh-keygen command to generate SSH public and private key files. Other key formats such as ED25519 and ECDSA are not supported.

Supported SSH key formatsĪzure currently supports SSH protocol 2 (SSH-2) RSA public-private key pairs with a minimum length of 2048 bits. VMs created using SSH keys are by default configured with passwords disabled, which greatly increases the difficulty of brute-force guessing attacks.įor more background and examples, see Detailed steps to create SSH key pairs.įor additional ways to generate and use SSH keys on a Windows computer, see How to use SSH keys with Windows on Azure.

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