Convert PEM to PPK file format

Question

Is there a way to convert PEM files to PPK files? (you may guess that Amazon EC2 gives me a PEM file, and I need to use the PPK format for SSH connectivity).

never heard of ppk format, but I doubt there's anything in .NET for it. — President James K. Polk, Jul 06 '10 at 22:20
PPK is the Putty client format. I don't think .NET has anything to do with it. — Borealid, Jul 06 '10 at 22:22
Ok, I didn't realise this... So PPK is just a proprietary/weird format that exists only in Putty-land? — LoneRanger, Jul 06 '10 at 23:04
It's also unhelpfully the only format that FileZilla accepts. — Ryder, Jun 30 '14 at 12:23
And the default format that AmazonWebServices puts out their keys. — Kzqai, Oct 05 '15 at 14:55
@Kzqai is that still true? I've always received PEM formatted keys from aws, I wonder if its a distinction made for Windows users. — ThorSummoner, Apr 25 '16 at 23:33
@ThorSummoner I was too vague, I meant .pem is always the format AWS gives us. — Kzqai, Apr 26 '16 at 16:59

score 273 · Answer 1 · edited May 10 '12 at 20:33

Use PuTTYGen

Creating and Using SSH Keys

Overview

vCloud Express now has the ability to create SSH Keys for Linux servers. This function will allow the user to create multiple custom keys by selecting the "My Account/Key Management" option. Once the key has been created the user will be required to select the desired SSH Key during the “Create Server” process for Linux.

Create and Use SSH Keys

Create keys
- Navigate to “My Account”
- Select “Key Management”
- Create New Key.
  - During the key creation process you will be prompted to download your private key file in .PEM format. You will not be able to download the private key again as it is not stored in vCloud Express.
  - The “Default” checkbox is used for the API.
Deploy server and select key
Connect
- SSH (Mac/Linux)
  - Copy .PEM file to the machine from which you are going to connect.
  - Make sure permissions on .PEM file are appropriate (chmod 600 file.pem)
  - Connect with ssh command: ssh vcloud@ipaddress –i privkey.pem
- Putty (Windows)
  - Download Putty and puttygen from - here
  - Use puttygen to convert .PEM file to .PPK file.
  - Start puttygen and select “Load”
  - Select your .PEM file.
  - Putty will convert the .PEM format to .PPK format.
  - Select “Save Private Key” A passphrase is not required but can be used if additional security is required.
- Connect with Putty.
  - Launch Putty and enter the host IP address. If connecting to the 10.X private address you must first establish an SSL VPN connection.
  - Navigate to Connection/SSH/Auth
  - Click “Browse” and select the .PPK file you exported from puttygen.
  - Click “Open.” When connection comes up enter username (default is vcloud).

Instructions copied from here

Thanks, I did this and it worked! LoneRanger, I think you can mark this as the correct answer :-) — Kevin P., Nov 20 '10 at 14:38

score 81 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 15 '11 at 05:34

81

I'm rather shocked that this has not been answered since the solution is very simple.

As mentioned in previous posts, you would not want to convert it using C#, but just once. This is easy to do with PuTTYGen.

Download your .pem from AWS
Open PuTTYgen
Click "Load" on the right side about 3/4 down
Set the file type to *.*
Browse to, and Open your .pem file
PuTTY will auto-detect everything it needs, and you just need to click "Save private key" and you can save your ppk key for use with PuTTY

Enjoy!

answered Nov 15 '11 at 05:34

trex005

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For whom this solution doesn't work, update your puttygen from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html . My one was 2005 and could not open PEMs – mistika Sep 05 '13 at 10:56
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It's really funny when you're looking for how to do something you haven't in a long time, and you find the stackoverflow answer you gave 2.5 years earlier. – trex005 Apr 14 '14 at 16:31
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@trex005 well, stackoverflow now seems to be an extension of our memory, we don't need to remember everything in our head. – Paramvir Singh Karwal Apr 08 '19 at 12:04
@ParamvirSinghKarwal you are so very right... I probably use this post every year or two for my own memroy, but I don't comment any longer as it would just get annoying! – trex005 Jun 04 '20 at 16:05

Deepak Sharma · Answer 3 · 2020-02-19T07:39:21.923

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If you have Linux machine just install puttygen in your system and use use below command to convert the key

pem to ppk use below command:

puttygen keyname -o keyname.ppk

Below command is use to convert ppk to pem not pem to ppk

puttygen filename.ppk -O private-openssh -o filename.pem

edited Feb 19 '20 at 07:39

answered Dec 26 '19 at 17:49

Deepak Sharma

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And you can install putty on most Linux distro's - there's a nice list here: https://command-not-found.com/puttygen – Oly Dungey Feb 11 '20 at 17:11
What's wrong in below commend to convert pem to ppk puttygen keyname -o keyname.ppk – Deepak Sharma Feb 19 '20 at 07:34
you have edited and mention the command that is use for converting ppk to pem – Deepak Sharma Feb 19 '20 at 07:37
Please dont use sudo as official document says , the commands mention above are correct. puttygen filename.ppk -O private-openssh -o filename.pem – subhashis Oct 19 '21 at 09:17

score 19 · Answer 4 · edited Mar 23 '17 at 16:16

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Download puttygen
Then open puttygen
click load
Set the file type to . all files
Save PrivateKey
and then u can just save any name that file became an ppk file

edited Mar 23 '17 at 16:16

afuzzyllama

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answered Mar 23 '17 at 15:07

user7757658

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score 9 · Answer 5 · edited Jan 02 '20 at 12:11

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To SSH connectivity to AWS EC2 instance, You don't need to convert the .PEM file to PPK file even on windows machine, Simple SSH using 'git bash' tool. No need to download and convert these softwares - Hope this will save your time of downloading and converting keys and get you more time on EC2 things.

edited Jan 02 '20 at 12:11

Paolo

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answered Dec 10 '17 at 07:17

Enigma

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Or, in Windows 10, "Bash on ubuntu on windows" – andrew lorien May 21 '18 at 02:29
You need ppk to do ssh using putty – sudip Jan 22 '19 at 08:47
The answer is correct but does not address the question in the title – Oly Dungey Feb 11 '20 at 17:08
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In my opinion, this does address the question. It's not like suggestions to "just use abc instead of xyz", this answer is saying use ssh to do ssh because ssh doesn't require ppk. – geneorama Jul 01 '21 at 18:43

score 7 · Answer 6 · edited Feb 19 '20 at 02:23

Save YourPEMFILE.pem to your .ssh directory
Run puttygen from Command Prompt

a. Click “Load” button to “Load an existing private key file”
b. Change the file filter to “All Files (.)
c. Select the YourPEMFILE.pem
d. Click Open
e. Puttygen shows a notice saying that it Successfully imported foreign key. Click OK.
f. Click “Save private key” button
g. When asked if you are sure that you want to save without a passphrase entered, answer “Yes”.
h. Enter the file name YourPEMFILE.ppk
i. Click “Save”

score 7 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 09 '19 at 17:33

Convert .pem file to .ppk for Windows 10

You need to do following:

1. Download PuTTYGen with Pageant.
2. Press "load" button and select your ".pem" file.
3. Press "save private key" button and save your ".ppk" file.
4. Open Pageant and press "add key" button. Just all. Keep running Pageant in background.
5. Now login through SSH or SFTP without selecting password field.

score 2 · Answer 8 · edited Dec 22 '19 at 12:27

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PuTTYgen for Ubuntu/Linux and PEM to PPK

sudo apt install putty-tools
puttygen -t rsa -b 2048 -C "user@host" -o keyfile.ppk

edited Dec 22 '19 at 12:27

slfan

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answered Dec 22 '19 at 12:08

Nematillo Ochilov

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score 1 · Answer 9 · answered May 22 '11 at 16:53

I used a trial version of ZOC Terminal Emulator and it worked. It readily accepts the Amazon's *.pem files.

The trick is though, that you need to specify "ec2-user" instead of "root" for the username - despite the example shown in the EC2 console, which is wrong! ;-)

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered May 29 '21 at 14:35

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sudo yum install putty

sudo apt-get install putty-tools

To convert your .pem file to a .ppk file

sudo puttygen pemKey.pem -o ppkKey.ppk -O private

To convert a .ppk file to a .pem file

sudo puttygen ppkkey.ppk -O private-openssh -o pemkey.pem

answered May 29 '21 at 14:35

Muhammad Javed Baloch

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score 0 · Answer 11 · answered May 16 '19 at 20:50

I had the same issue with PuttyGen not wanting to import an openSSH private key. I tried everything and what I found out was the old version of PuttyGen did not support importing OpenSSH. Once I downloaded the latest Putty, puttygen then allowed it to import the openssh private key just fine. I now have a hole in the side of my desk for pounding my head against it for the past hour.

Convert PEM to PPK file format

11 Answers11

Creating and Using SSH Keys

Overview

Create and Use SSH Keys

Convert .pem file to .ppk for Windows 10

Linked

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