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SSH Keys

Palette supports SSH (Secure Shell) to establish, administer, and communicate with remote clusters. This section describes creating and managing SSH Keys in the Palette Management Console.

Scope of SSH Key​

Palette groups clusters for logical separation into Projects. Users and teams can be assigned roles within a project for granular control over permissions within the project scope. SSH key authentication is scoped to a project. Multiple users can gain access to a single project. To access a cluster with SSH, you need a public SSH key registered in Palette.

Prerequisites​

  • Access to a terminal window.

  • The utility ssh-keygen or similar SSH key generator software.

Create and Upload an SSH Key​

Follow these steps to create an SSH key using the terminal and upload it to Palette:

  1. Open the terminal on your computer.

  2. Check for existing SSH keys by invoking the following command.


     ls -la ~/.ssh

    If you see files named id_rsa and id_rsa.pub, you already have an SSH key pair and can skip to step 8. If not, proceed to step 3.

  3. Generate a new SSH key pair by issuing the following command.


    ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"

    Replace your_email@example.com with your actual email address.

  4. Press Enter to accept the default file location for the key pair.

  5. Enter a passphrase (optional) and confirm it. We recommend using a strong passphrase for added security.

  6. Copy the public SSH key value. Use the cat command to display the public key.


    cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

    Copy the entire key, including the ssh-rsa prefix and your email address at the end.

  7. Log in to Palette.

  8. Navigate to the left Main Menu, select Project Settings, and then the SSH Keys tab.

  9. Open the Add New SSH Key tab and complete the Add Key input form:

    • Name: Provide a unique name for the SSH key.

    • SSH Key: Paste the SSH public key contents from the key pair generated earlier.

  10. Click Confirm to complete the wizard.


info

You can edit or delete SSH keys later by using the three-dot Menu to the right of each key.

During cluster creation, assign your SSH key to a cluster. You can use multiple keys to a project, but only one key can be assigned to an individual cluster.

Validate​

You can validate that the SSH public key is available in Palette by attempting to deploy a host cluster. During the host cluster creation wizard, you will be able to assign the SSH key to the cluster. Refer to the Deploy a Cluster tutorial for additional guidance.