Using RSA private key from PuTTY in Filezilla

Question

I have created an RSA private key using PuTTYgen. When I try to use it, I am notified that I can't use this encrypted key in Filezilla, so from the documentation I found that I need to use the Pageant tool. Now the problem is I am using Fedora (the latest version), how can I install Pageant? Is there any equivalent of Pageant out there? I am not good with Linux so I need a GUI method.

Answer 1

PuTTY has its own private key file format. If you want to use a key file generated by PuTTYgen, you need to convert it to the OpenSSH key format (which is the standard on Linux and other unix systems). Use the export command in PuTTYgen.

You'll get a key file, often called id_rsa (or something.id_rsa if you have several keys). Copy that file to the directory ~/.ssh on your linux machine (~ is your home directory). If you call it ~/.ssh/id_rsa, it'll be picked up automatically, otherwise you'll have to configure ssh to use the right key or to load the key into your agent, both of which are a bit more complicated (and I only know how to do these from the command line). Make sure that the permissions of the ~/.ssh directory and the id_rsa file are appropriate: ~/.ssh must be writable only by you (and should be readable only by you); ~/.ssh/id_rsa must be readable and writable only by you.

The Linux equivalent of Pageant is ssh-agent or some other keyring program, but that's not what you need here.