Generating an SSH Key on Windows

If you need to generate an SSH key to make new Closed Captioning requests from your integrated system and/or computer, this article shows how to do that on Windows, using two different methods.

Generating an SSH Key on Windows - using PuTTY Gen:

• Download and install PuTTY. When the installation is complete, select and open the PuTTY Gen application.

• Set the Parameters by selecting the SSH-2 RSA radio button, and enter 2048 for the number of bits. Click Generate and the Key generation will begin.

• When the Key generation is complete, save the Private part of your key on your local computer using the Save Private Key button. Do not assign a passphrase to this key for use with your AST account. Make sure you save this key in a secure location and make a note of where you save it (you will need to know this in a moment). It is not necessary to save the Public part of your key, but you may do so if you wish.

• Back in the PuTTY Gen window, the public key text appears in the upper pane on the window -- select all of it and copy it to your clipboard with Ctrl-C.

• Now, you can enroll your public key in CaptionSync. Log in to your CaptionSync account and go to Settings -> SSH Keys -> Add Another Key. Paste the key from your clipboard into the new key window; add a description to Note that will allow you to later identify the key. Click Add Key. You may enroll as many keys as you need in your CaptionSync account and enable/disable them as you need.

Generating an SSH Key on Windows - using Git:

• Download Git, run the Git.exe file and install the app. When you get to the “Adjusting your PATH variable environment” screen, choose Use Git Bash only. Next, on the “Configuring the line ending conversions” screen, choose Checkout as-is, commit as-is. Then proceed with the installation.

• On the Start Menu of your computer, select Git -> Git GUI. To generate a new public-private key pair, open the Help menu and select Show SSH Key.

• Open your Windows Explorer to check if the ./ssh directory already exists in your pc. Following this path should direct you there: C:\Users\[your user name]\.ssh (replace [your user name] with your user name).

• Then go back to the Git window and click Generate Key. Do not assign a passphrase to this key, so when asked to enter a new passphrase just press OK.

• A new public key will show on the Git window. To copy the public key, click Copy to Clipboard:

• Now, you can enroll your public key in CaptionSync. Log in to your CaptionSync account and go to Settings -> SSH Keys -> Add Another Key. Paste the key from your clipboard into the new key window; add a description to Note that will allow you to later identify the key. Click Add Key. You may enroll as many keys as you need in your CaptionSync account and enable/disable them as you need.

• The public part of the key is saved in the id_rsa.pub file, while the private part is saved in the id_rsa file. Both files can be accessed from this location using Explorer: C:\Users\[your user name]\.ssh. Make sure you replace [your user name] with your user name.

• If you later need to copy the private part of your key, open the id_rsa file with Notepad (change the extension to id_rsa.txt if Notepad doesn't immediately open the file), and then copy the key from -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- to -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY----- .

• If you later need to generate a new key pair for another integration, copy the id_rsa.pub and the id_rsa files to another folder in your computer, and make a note on this. Once the .ssh folder is empty, you can use Git to generate a new public-private key pair.

Additional Notes:

An SSH public-private key pair allows you to securely log into AST's servers and perform authentication, without having to specify a password. It also allows you to send files via an encrypted network connection. You can add as many key pairs as you need to your CaptionSync account: all pairs are independent and each computer only has information regarding its own pair. Also, you can enable or disable each pair without affecting any of the other pairs.