Today I read Debian: convert ppk key for linux ssh which explained how to convert PuTTY *.ppk files to *.pem files for Linux:
sudo apt-get install putty-tools puttygen mykey.ppk -O private-openssh -o mykey.pem
I think I’ve probably done this before (the links in my browser were marked as visited), but today I wanted to create a desktop/toolbar shortcut icon (with shortcut key) to a saved PuTTY session called “peace tunnel”. The “peace tunnel” opens an SSH session to a development server called “peace” and automatically configures a tunnel from port 80 on the localhost to port 80 on the server, so I can check on the progress of a web application under development.
Anyway, I found the documentation for Starting a session from the command line and basically to load my saved session called “peace tunnel” I had to run the command:
putty.exe -load "peace tunnel"
Too easy.
If you want to allow root logins to your server, but want to disallow root logins with a password (leaving key logins enabled), then you can edit your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and specify PermitRootLogin without-password.
I found this article Keeping Your SSH Sessions Alive Through Pesky NAT Firewalls which explained how to keep SSH connections alive through NAT firewalls. I’m behind a NAT router and my SSH connections are always timing out due to inactivity, and it annoys the shit out of me. I’ve been putting up with it for ages, and tonight I finally got around to searching for a solution. The solution is to edit your ~/.ssh/config file and add:
Host *
ServerAliveInterval 240
That will make the server send a keep-alive packet every four minutes, which out to do it. Haven’t tried it yet, but expect it will work. Will configure my systems now…
Update: that didn’t seem to work for me. :(
Maybe this is a client setting?
Anyway, I did some more research, and I found that PuTTY has a configuration option in the Connection settings “Sending of null packets to keep session active”, “Seconds between keepalives” which defaults to 0 (turned off). So I’m gonna try with that now.
Read all about it on the news page.