IBM Support

Accessing a virtual machine on PureApplication System or Workload Deployer from Windows using PuTTY

Question & Answer


Question

How do I access a virtual machine on a PureApplication System or an IBM Workload Deployer from Windows using PuTTY?

Answer

When you need to troubleshoot or perform maintenance on a particular virtual machine, you can connect to it using SSH. There are many clients that can be used to make an SSH connection to a virtual machine. This technote provides instructions for using the PuTTY client for Windows.

Note the following before you begin:

  • The virtual machine must have the public key installed and you must have the private key for connecting to the virtual machine. If you do not have an SSH key pair, see Configuring SSH key-based access for details about generating SSH keys and uploading them to virtual machines.
  • To use the PuTTY client, download it from the PuTTY web site. Contact the focal point on the PuTTY site if you need assistance with the download or installation process. Install the client on the computer you will use to access the virtual machines.
  • OpenSSL must be installed if you are using a private key generated by the system. If Cygwin, you can use the OpenSSL package provided in that environment. Binary distributions of OpenSSL for Windows are also available from a number of open source projects. For more information, see OpenSSL Downloads.

If you generated your private key from the system, you must convert the private key to a format that is compatible with PuTTY. The private key file must end with a newline character so that PuTTY will load it correctly.
  1. Run the following OpenSSL command to remove the passphrase on the RSA private key: openssl rsa -in id_rsa -out id_rsa.pem
    1. Start the PuTTYgen program.
    2. Click Conversions > Import Key.
    3. Select the id_rsa.pem file you created.
    4. In the Parameters section of the window, ensure SSH-2 RSA is selected.
    5. Click Save private key. Save the file as id_rsa.ppk.
  2. Start the PuTTY program.
  3. Configure PuTTY to connect with your private key.
    1. In the Category pane, select Connection > SSH > Auth.
    2. In the Authentication parameters section, under Private key file for authentication, click Browse and select your id_rsa.ppk file.
  4. In the Category pane, select Session.
  5. Specify the IP address of the virtual machine and select SSH as the connection type.
  6. Click Open.
  7. When prompted for the user name, type virtuser.
    Note: You must use this user name to connect to the virtual machine. Other user names, including root will not work.

After you are logged in, you can administer the system as needed. To change to the root user, use the command: sudo -s .

[{"Product":{"code":"SSM8NY","label":"PureApplication System"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU053","label":"Cloud & Data Platform"},"Component":"Virtual applications","Platform":[{"code":"PF016","label":"Linux"}],"Version":"2.1.2.0;2.1.1.0;2.1.0.0;2.0;1.1.0.0;1.0","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"","label":""}},{"Product":{"code":"SSZ6WM","label":"IBM Workload Deployer"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU053","label":"Cloud & Data Platform"},"Component":"Virtual applications","Platform":[{"code":"","label":""}],"Version":"3.1","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB15","label":"Integration"}}]

Document Information

Modified date:
15 June 2018

UID

swg21614074

Page Feedback