How to Create a Key Pair in AWS

 

How to Create a Key Pair in AWS

A key pair is a set of public and private keys that you can use to securely connect to your AWS instances. The public key is a cryptographic code that can be used by anyone to encrypt data, while the private key is a secret code that can be used to decrypt the data.

To create a key pair using the AWS Management Console:

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon EC2 console.
2. In the navigation pane, under Network & Security, choose Key Pairs.
3. Choose Create key pair.
4. In the Create key pair dialog box, enter a name for your key pair and choose the file format. You can choose PEM or PPK for Windows or Linux instances.
5. Choose Create key pair. The console will download the private key file to your computer. You must save this file in a secure location and never share it with anyone. You will need this file to connect to your instances later.
6. You can view the public key of your key pair in the console by choosing the key pair name and then choosing View public key.

To create a key pair using the AWS CLI:

1. Install and configure the AWS CLI on your computer.
2. Run the following command to create a key pair and save the private key as a file named my-key-pair.pem:

aws ec2 create-key-pair --key-name my-key-pair --query 'KeyMaterial' --output text > my-key-pair.pem

3. Change the permissions of the private key file to make it read-only for your user:

chmod 400 my-key-pair.pem

4. You can view the public key of your key pair by running the following command:

aws ec2 describe-key-pairs --key-name my-key-pair --query 'KeyPairs[0].KeyFingerprint'

To create a key pair using the AWS SDKs:

Follow the documentation for your preferred programming language. For example, you can use the Java SDK to create a key pair with the following code:

Java

// Create an EC2 client
AmazonEC2 ec2 = AmazonEC2ClientBuilder.defaultClient();

// Create a key pair request
CreateKeyPairRequest request = new CreateKeyPairRequest();
request.setKeyName("my-key-pair");

// Create a key pair
CreateKeyPairResult result = ec2.createKeyPair(request);

// Get the private key
String privateKey = result.getKeyPair().getKeyMaterial();

// Save the private key to a file
FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream("my-key-pair.pem");
out.write(privateKey.getBytes());
out.close();

// Get the public key
String publicKey = result.getKeyPair().getKeyFingerprint();

I hope this is helpful! Let me know if you have any other questions.