It is assumed that the user has made a manual connection using PuTTY, run as the Control Center Service Account, using a previously generated key pair before attempting to use Control Center over such a connection: if not, do not proceed before doing so.
- In PuTTY, create and save a session which identifies the public key location and connection details (hostname, port, connection type). This must be done as the Control Center Service Account.
- When saving the session, for clarity, we recommend that you use the target’s hostname. For example, for Target “sparky”, call the session “sparky_session”.
- In System Manager, specify the saved session name as the “Server Name or IP address”. Supply the username as normal. If the public/private key pair was generated using a passphrase, supply this in the password box. There is a maximum length limitation of 39 characters for the passphrase.
It is necessary to create a session for each target that uses public key authentication when using PuTTY.
If you cannot logon as the Athene account, there are articles on the Internet that show you how to move SSH entries from one user to another and how to create PuTTy keys as one userid and move them to be usable by the “system” account if you run Control Center as the "system" user.
The first time you access an SSH host, you’ll get and store the host key. Putty stores the host key in the registry. If you run putty plink as a Windows service, the host key should be available to the Windows system user. Otherwise, plink won’t connect to the remote server.
- Access the remote host interactively with putty or plink. Accept the host key.
- Run regedit and export the key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\SshHostKeysYou’ll get something like this:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\SshHostKeys] "rsa2@22:192.168.21.4"="0x23,0xce80259ad9bd9e1bc9088f35f3bf7 cf2daefa31069e368e53ccd970818bd88d20 76c398972e1687e5ddbfa767c4e6e37558d85341b951ac5590eecd0509de0075 c2aace13cf8585fd4c7909599740391ebb7c 570d4f70239d94d9aa92c62091a5267462b89979716da7aaf2ccb1a27fc06af ea7b8ce03c906ef816bc4c4df00b" "rsa2@22:192.168.21.1"="0x23,0xd47c4642379c89119ad2e93040f35d53e 6b37ba4ddaa1f367bfcf4b5d13fedd72 7b0c22d772d16229208e6a0dce55f1b08a29b76223fd4135f56d965aab69030 449f4a8c6e64b35437b58ab82f801b49cfd7d b4c7028d7a4c2cf689c53ed47017801cfcb122e5b4a43cde70333c8506c190 111fa8df2acb9c2c020c372e7a0bd" - Edit the exported registry file, change HKEY_CURRENT_USER to
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT:
[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\SshHostKeys] "rsa2@22:192.168.21.4"="0x23,0xce80259ad9bd9e1bc9088f35f3bf7cf2daefa310 69e368e53ccd970818bd88d20 76c398972e1687e5ddbfa767c4e6e37558d85341b951ac5590eecd0509de0075c2aace 13cf8585fd4c7909599740391ebb7c 570d4f70239d94d9aa92c62091a5267462b89979716da7aaf2ccb1a27fc06afea7b8c e03c906ef816bc4c4df00b" "rsa2@22:192.168.21.1"="0x23,0xd47c4642379c89119ad2e93040f35d53e6b37 ba4ddaa1f367bfcf4b5d13fedd72 7b0c22d772d16229208e6a0dce55f1b08a29b76223fd4135f56d965aab69030449f 4a8c6e64b35437b58ab82f801b49cfd7d b4c7028d7a4c2cf689c53ed47017801cfcb122e5b4a43cde70333c8506c190111fa 8df2acb9c2c020c372e7a0bd" - Import the file back into the registry.