convert .pem to .ppk on macos [closed]

Question

There are lots of SO posts on this topic but most of them are for Windows and use the GUI. All others posts seem to use the CLI.

Is there a GUI version of puttygen on MacOS/Linux and if so instructions on how to install/use? The CLI seems to give me an error.

Usage: puttygen ( keyfile | -t type [ -b bits ] )
                [ -C comment ] [ -P ] [ -q ]
                [ -o output-keyfile ] [ -O type | -l | -L | -p ]


>puttygen mykey.pem -t rsa -b 2048 -o mykey.ppk
puttygen: cannot both load and generate a key

Is there something wrong with my commands?

Colincolinson

Answer 1

There is no GUI for macos' putty versions.

You can simply convert your key like this: puttygen mykey.pem -o mykey.ppk

Update: on macos to have puttygen, you can brew install putty

Perineurium

Thank you for the reply. I guess I'm wonder why do they give command options? The AWS instructions seem to require rsa type and 2048 bits as per their documentation. docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/…. Terrible documentation. – Colincolinson

No idea why they set the size in the GUI, there is no choice there, you don't convert an openssh 2048bita key to a putty 1024bits key ;) – Perineurium

Is puttygen available on mac? – Annecy

yes, you can install it with brew, or build in manually from sources. – Perineurium

run brew install putty for the correct formula. http://brewformulas.org/Putty On mac OSX 10.12.6, trying to install puttygen returns an error: Error: No available formula with the name "puttygen" – Ruttger

On my mac using 12.6.2 Monterrey I was able to run brew install putty with no issue. – Angling

Converted PPK file is not working. – Raymer

Answer 2

Now you should type

puttygen Fishidentification.pem -o fishkey.ppk --ppk-param version=2

Because Putty/FileZilla ssh client applied PPK format version 2 not version 3. If you did not add the parameter --ppk-param version=2, puttygen will generate ppk file as PPK format 3 as default. The error message is shown below:

FATAL ERROR: No supported authentication methods available (server sent: publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic)

Urbanism

Answer 3

you can convert like this puttygen -t rsa -C name.pem -o name.ppk

Delmardelmer