Generating your SSH keys

By default, Amazon EC2 uses SSH key pairs to give you SSH access to your EC2 instances. You can either generate a key pair in EC2 and download the private key or generate a key yourself using a third-party tool such as OpenSSL, importing the public key in EC2. We will use the first method to create EC2 SSH keys.

Here, ensure that you set read only permissions on your newly generated private (.pem) key file:

    $ aws ec2 create-key-pair --key-name EffectiveDevOpsAWS --query   
    'KeyMaterial' --output text > ~/.ssh/EffectiveDevOpsAWS.pem
    
    $ aws ec2 describe-key-pairs --key-name EffectiveDevOpsAWS
    {
        "KeyPairs": [
            {
                "KeyName": "EffectiveDevOpsAWS",
                "KeyFingerprint": 
          "27:83:5d:9b:4c:88:f6:15:c7:39:df:23:4f:29:21:3b:3d:49:e6:af"
    
            }
        ]
    }
    
    $ cat ~/.ssh/EffectiveDevOpsAWS.pem
    -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIEpAIBAAKCAQEAiZLtUMnO2OKnHvTJOiIP26fThdsU0YRdlKI60in85x9aFZXSrZsKwOhWPpMtnUMJKeGvVQut+gJ1I1PNNjPqS2Dy60jH55hntUhr/ArpaL2ISDX4BgRAP1jcukBqS6+pL+mTp6OUNTToUt7LvAZoeo+10SYbzHF1ZMQLLs96fCMNvnbJdUCa904dJjJs7t/G2ou9RiNMRx8midrWcmmuGKOb1s6FgrxJ5OAMYegeccFVfGOjqPk3f+6QTPOTMNgNQ8ANKOMA9YtcIca/75QGUPifusTqUT4Fqtv3rbUYPvacAnYL9eCthtn1XMG7Oo/mR5MrU60wib2QcPipmrGNbwIDAQABAoIBABSyqkmxUxGGaCZcJbo9Ta16fnRxFZzAEWQ/VCIydv4+1UrSE7RS0zdavT8E3aP/Ze2LKtncu/wVSpJaFVHGVcWpfGKxvIG3iELZ9oUhDyTW/x3+IKanFRNyxyKudk+UyhuPRMu/7JhksV9mbbiILkfiPzSMSzpjB4p1hEkypfbvBnrbB+sRycx+jK5l209rNDukkJVvyFCnqPiH0wmvKRqHTNOMGWmM6CPOU+VpuMX+dIlrSeId7j6hqMjA0rGncnxYi035v2zicvIsEKHZ9MZCnkiRb3kJ9PhueTwwUQmoBYfV5E+1Wu34UmdsmALQEX3xniaR6xf9iWhQ2Nh8LaECgYEAzXHOZDPAUzXitO735KBUaiBp9NMv2gzE862Yf2rmDkFM4Y5RE3DKHrKfeOkrYqlG11On0m44GHBk/g4eqqIEaBjVp6i/Lk74tpQU6Kn1HT3w9lbXEFsCWjYZnev5oHP6PdedtRYNzZsCSNUdlw0kOG5WZZJ4E7mPZyrvK5pq+rMCgYEAq22KT0nD3d59V+LVVZfMzJuUBDeJeD139mmVbzAq9u5Hr4MkurmcIj8Q6jJIQaiC8XC1gBVEl08ZN2oY1+CBE+Gesi7mGOQ2ovDmoTfYRgScKKHv7WwR+N5/N7o26x+ZaoeaBe43Vjp6twaTpKkBOIuT50tvb25v9+UVMpGKcFUC
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
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

    $ chmod 400 ~/.ssh/EffectiveDevOpsAWS.pem