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Version: 23.1

SSH credentials

SSH public key authentication relies on asymmetric cryptography to generate a public and private key pair. The public key remains on the target (remote) machine, while the private key (and passphrase) is stored in Tower as a credential. The key pair is used to authenticate a Tower connection with your SSH-enabled environment.

All credentials are (AES-256) encrypted before secure storage and not exposed in an unencrypted way by any Tower API.

Create an SSH key pair​

To use SSH public key authentication:

  • The remote system must have a version of SSH installed. This guide assumes the remote system uses OpenSSH. If you are using a different version of SSH, the key generation steps may differ.
  • The SSH public key must be present on the remote system (usually in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys).

To generate an SSH key pair:

  1. From the target machine, open a terminal and run ssh-keygen.
  2. Follow the prompts to:
    • specify a file path and name (or keep the default)
    • specify a passphrase (recommended)
  3. Navigate to the target folder (default /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa) and open the private key file with a plain text editor.
  4. Copy the private key file contents before navigating to Tower.

Create an SSH credential in Tower​

  • From an organization workspace: navigate to the Credentials tab and select Add Credentials.

  • From your personal workspace: select Your credentials from the user top-right menu, then select Add credentials.

PropertyDescriptionExample
NameA unique name for the credentials using alphanumeric characters, dashes, or underscores.my-ssh-creds
ProviderCredential typeSSH
SSH private keyThe SSH private key file contents.-----BEGIN OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----b3BlbnNza....
PassphraseSSH private key passphrase (recommended). If your key pair was created without a passphrase, leave this blank.

Once the form is complete, select Add. The new credential is now listed under the Credentials tab.