How To Generate An SSH Key Pair For Use With Room Alert Manager

In order to generate the keys, you need to have an SSH client installed on Room Alert Manager’s host system.

• There are a few ways to check if an SSH client is installed; one easy way is to open Windows Command Prompt and enter this command:
  ssh -V
  
• This command returns the current version of the SSH client that is installed on the machine.
• If there is no SSH client installed, the command will instead return: “‘ssh’ is not recognized as an internal or external command…”

The steps below show you how to install the OpenSSH client on Windows 10.

OpenSSH is built into modern versions of Windows as an “optional feature” (not installed by default). To install it:

1. Go to Windows Settings –> Apps and select Optional features.
   (If you already have the SSH client installed, it will appear in the list here.)
2. Select Add a feature at the top of the Optional Features list.
3. Scroll down to find “OpenSSH Client” in the list. Enable the checkbox beside it, and then select Install.

Running an older version of Windows that doesn’t have OpenSSH built-in?
You can download OpenSSH from here: https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/tags. (We recommend downloading OpenSSH-Win64.zip of the v8.9.1.0p1-Beta release or newer.) You can find installation instructions in this tutorial: How to Install an OpenSSH Server/Client on A Windows 2016 Server.

On the target server, you must have an SSH daemon (sshd) running in the background, constantly waiting for an SSH connection.

Select your target server’s OS tab below for instructions.

Next, generate a public/private key pair from Room Alert Manager’s host system.

After generating the key pair, you’ll share the public key with the target server. The private key should remain securely stored on Room Alert Manager’s host system.

These steps show you how to generate an SSH key pair through command prompt:

1. On Room Alert Manager’s host system, open a command prompt window.
2. Then run this command: ssh-keygen
   
3. You’ll see a message that the keys are being generated.
   
4. When prompted to select a location, you may press Enter to leave the default location (the .ssh folder on your user drive) or specify a path and/or filename.
   
5. Next, you’ll be prompted to use a passphrase to encrypt your private key files. Enter a passphrase or simply press Enter to leave it empty.
   
6. You’ll see a message showing where the keys have been stored, the key fingerprint, and the key’s randomart image.
   
7. In our example, there are now files id_rsa and id_rsa.pub in our .ssh folder. The first is the private key. The second is the public key—that’s what we’ll send to the target server.

Share the public key with the target server.

To use the SSH key pair created in the previous step, the contents of the public key must be saved to a file on the target server. The steps to do this vary, based on the target server’s OS.

The steps below show you how to deploy the public key on a Windows system in the most basic way—by manually copying & pasting the key’s contents. Alternatively, you may use PowerShell or another command line tool to deploy the public key. For PowerShell instructions, please see Key-based authentication in OpenSSH for Windows.

Please follow these steps to manually share the public key:

1. On Room Alert Manager’s host system, open the public key file in a text editor program, such as Notepad.
2. Copy the entire contents of the public key to your clipboard.
3. Then on the target system, either locate the existing “authorized keys” file or create one if needed.
   • The file name & location depends on whether the user account is a member of the local administrators group or a standard user account.
     • For a standard user, the authorized_keys file is located in the .ssh folder of the user’s directory.
     • For an admin user, the administrators_authorized_keys file is located in the system’s main ssh directory.
   • Note that only the local system and administrators security group should have permissions to access the administrators_authorized_keys file.
4. Open the authorized keys file in a text editor, such as Notepad, with administrator privileges.
5. Paste the entire contents of the public key at the bottom of the authorized keys file.
6. Save the changes to the file.
7. Restart the SSH Server daemon to apply the public key.

Before you configure Room Alert Manager to use this SSH key, it’s a good idea to manually check that you are able to do a basic SSH connection using key authorization. To do this, please follow the steps below:

1. On Room Alert Manager’s host system, open a command prompt window.
2. Then run this command: ssh [user@target IP or hostname]
   Example: ssh janesmith@192.168.123.45
3. You should be able to connect to the target system without needing to enter the user’s password. (If the key has a passphrase associated with it, you will be prompted to enter that.)
4. Additional information is available in our FAQ, How To Troubleshoot Server Actions In Room Alert Manager.