Use SSH keys for sFTP connections

Tom Santiago

Updated October 03, 2024 17:23

SSL vs. SSH security standards

The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) standard uses certificates to encrypt and authenticate communication between browsers and servers.
The Secure Shell (SSH) standard can use either a public key/private key pair or a username/password to encrypt communication between two computers connected over the internet.

You may also be interested in the integrator.io options for using PGP encryption.

Use the following steps to generate an SSH key pair:

Download and install a copy of PuTTYgen from the PuTTY Website.
Set the following parameters in PuTTYgen:
1. Type of key to generate: RSA (NOT SSH-1 RSA)
2. Range of bits in a generated key: 2048/4096/8192-bits
  
  Note
  
  Leave the Key passphrase field empty. integrator.io only supports the keys without a passphrase.
Click Generate.
Click Save public key to save the key.
To Save the private key, click Conversions>Export OpenSSH key, and save the key in PEM format.

Note

integrator.io only supports private keys in PEM format. Keep the private key in a secure location since anyone with the private key can log in as you.

Mac has native support for SSH Key generation that you can use to generate an SSH key pair.

Open Terminal. (Search via spotlight.)
Enter the following command: ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048 -m PEM

This starts the key generation process, and the ssh-keygen utility prompts you to enter a storage location for the key.
Press Enter to accept the default location. This saves your public key (id_rsa.pub) and private key (id_rsa) in the .ssh folder in your Home directory.
The ssh-keygen utility prompts you for a passphrase. Leave the passphrase field blank. integrator.io does not support keys that have a passphrase.

Enter the following command to save the key to your clipboard: pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

From the Resources menu, click Connections > + Create connection.
Select the FTP connector from the list of connectors.
Enter the Host URL of the FTP server, and select the sFTP protocol.
Enter the username.
Paste the RSA private key you generated into the Authentication Key (pem format) field. Before using the private keys here, verify that your FTP server settings are configured correctly for the RSA public key.
Click Test Connection. If you've successfully set up the connection, a message that says “Your connection is working great! Nice Job!” displays.
Save the connection.