Oct 12, 2016  Angela from the API support team walks through how to generate a public private key pair using OpenSSL and register a private application. If you want to try integrating to Xero, partner. To generate the public/private key pair, enter this in the Command Prompt: ssh-keygen At the first prompt, “Enter file in which to save the key,” press Enter to save it in the default location.

Public and private key pairs lie at the core of how is referred to as public key cryptography. Together, they work to secure and authenticate messages. They also lie behind how we authenticate messages at PreVeil.
We often find ourselves explaining the concepts of how these keys work when we talk to prospective clients. So, we thought it would be helpful to discuss what these keys are, what they aren’t and how they work.
The answers below provide a general overview on public and private key pairs rather than an architectural overview of PreVeil. For a detailed understanding of how public-private key pairs work in PreVeil, please review our architectural whitepaper.

Public key vs. private key

The main difference between a public and a private key is their use. The public key , as its name implies, is public and open to anyone in the system. The public key is used to encrypt data.
The private key however is private. It is only ever stored on user’s device. The private key is used to decrypt data.

Public key is used to convert the message to an unreadable form. Private key is used to convert the received message back to the original message. Both these keys help to ensure the security of the exchanged data. A message encrypted with the public key cannot be decrypted without using the corresponding private key.

Generating public private key pairs

The public and private key are not really keys but rather are really large prime numbers that are mathematically related to one another. Being related in this case means that whatever is encrypted by the public key can only be decrypted by the related private key.

A person cannot guess the private key based on knowing the public key. Because of this, a public key can be freely shared. The private key however belongs to only one person.
There are several well-known mathematical algorithms that are used to produce the public and private key. Some well-respected examples of public private key encryption are RSA, DSS (Digital Signature Standard) and various elliptic curve techniques. At PreVeil, we use elliptic-curve cryptography’s Curve-25519 and NIST P-256.

Can a public key decrypt a private key?

In asymmetric cryptography, the public and private key can also be used to create a digital signature. A digital signature assures that the person sending the message is who they claim to be.
Typically, we use the recipient’s public key to encrypt the data and the recipient then uses their private key to decrypt the data. However, using this scheme, there’s no way to authenticate the source of the message. Mike could get a hold of Bob’s public key (since it’s public) and pretend that Bob is the person sending a message to Alice.
To prevent this type of fraud, Bob can sign his message with a digital signature. Diablo 2 lod cd key 26 characters generator. Digital signatures ensure Mike can’t pretend that he is Bob by using Bob’s public key to send a message to Alice.

To create a digital signature using a public and private key, Bob digitally signs his email to Alice using his private key. When Alice receives the message from Bob, she can verify the digital signature on the message came from Bob by using his public key. As the digital signature uses Bob’s private key, Bob is the only person who could create the signature.
PreVeil’s method for securing messages is a bit more complex than the example provided above. However the example provides a good general overview for how asymmetric encryption works.

How public and private keys work

Public and private keys work together in pairs. As noted above, public keys are disseminated widely and private keys are known only to the owner.
Here’s an example of how the public and private key pair works together:
Bob wants to send Alice an encrypted email. To do this, Bob takes Alice’s public key and encrypts his message to her. Then, when Alice receives the message, she takes the private key that is known only to her in order to decrypt the message from Bob and reads it.

Although the companies owning the server might try to read the message, they will be unable to because they lack the private key to decrypt the message. Only Alice will be able to decrypt the message as she is the only one with the private key.
When Alice wants to reply, she simply repeats the process, encrypting her message to Bob using Bob’s public key.

Examples of public private key encryption.

Many protocols like SSH, OpenPGP, S/MIME, and SSL/TLS rely on asymmetric cryptography for encryption and digital signatures. It is also used in software programs, such as browsers, to establish secure connections over an insecure network like the internet.

PreVeil is one example platform that uses public and private keys to encrypt data and create digital signatures. Other well-known applications that use public and private keys to secure messages are WhatsApp and Signal.

Business benefits of public private key encryption

By using a public and private key for encryption and decryption, recipients can be confident that the data is what the sender says it is. The recipient is assured of the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of the data.
Confidentiality is ensured because the content that is secured with the public key can only be decrypted with the private key. This ensures that only the intended recipient can ever review the contents
Integrity is ensured because part of the decryption process requires checking that the received message matches the sent message. This ensures that the message has not been changed in between.
Authenticity is ensured because each message sent by Alice to Bob is also signed by Alice’s private key. The only way to decrypt Alice’s private key is with her public key, which Bob can access. By signing the message with her private key, Alice ensures the authenticity of the message and shows that it really did come from her.

Conclusion

Interested in reading more about public private keys? Look at our articles on:
End-to-end encryption
Email encryption
Or watch our video on how public and private keys secure enterprise email:

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With a secure shell (SSH) key pair, you can create virtual machines (VMs) in Azure that use SSH keys for authentication, eliminating the need for passwords to sign in. This article shows you how to quickly generate and use an SSH public-private key file pair for Linux VMs. You can complete these steps with the Azure Cloud Shell, a macOS or Linux host, the Windows Subsystem for Linux, and other tools that support OpenSSH.

Note

VMs created using SSH keys are by default configured with passwords disabled, which greatly increases the difficulty of brute-force guessing attacks.

For more background and examples, see Detailed steps to create SSH key pairs.

For additional ways to generate and use SSH keys on a Windows computer, see How to use SSH keys with Windows on Azure.

Supported SSH key formats

Azure currently supports SSH protocol 2 (SSH-2) RSA public-private key pairs with a minimum length of 2048 bits. Other key formats such as ED25519 and ECDSA are not supported.

Create an SSH key pair

Use the ssh-keygen command to generate SSH public and private key files. By default, these files are created in the ~/.ssh directory. You can specify a different location, and an optional password (passphrase) to access the private key file. If an SSH key pair with the same name exists in the given location, those files are overwritten.

The following command creates an SSH key pair using RSA encryption and a bit length of 4096:

If you use the Azure CLI to create your VM with the az vm create command, you can optionally generate SSH public and private key files using the --generate-ssh-keys option. The key files are stored in the ~/.ssh directory unless specified otherwise with the --ssh-dest-key-path option. The --generate-ssh-keys option will not overwrite existing key files, instead returning an error. In the following command, replace VMname and RGname with your own values:

Provide an SSH public key when deploying a VM

To create a Linux VM that uses SSH keys for authentication, specify your SSH public key when creating the VM using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, Azure Resource Manager templates, or other methods:

If you're not familiar with the format of an SSH public key, you can display your public key with the following cat command, replacing ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub with the path and filename of your own public key file if needed:

A typical public key value looks like this example:

Generate Public Private Key Pair Online

If you copy and paste the contents of the public key file to use in the Azure portal or a Resource Manager template, make sure you don't copy any trailing whitespace. To copy a public key in macOS, you can pipe the public key file to pbcopy. Similarly in Linux, you can pipe the public key file to programs such as xclip.

The public key that you place on your Linux VM in Azure is by default stored in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub, unless you specified a different location when you created the key pair. To use the Azure CLI 2.0 to create your VM with an existing public key, specify the value and optionally the location of this public key using the az vm create command with the --ssh-key-values option. In the following command, replace VMname, RGname, and keyFile with your own values:

How To Create Public Key

If you want to use multiple SSH keys with your VM, you can enter them in a space-separated list, like this --ssh-key-values sshkey-desktop.pub sshkey-laptop.pub.

Generate Private And Public Key

SSH into your VM

With the public key deployed on your Azure VM, and the private key on your local system, SSH into your VM using the IP address or DNS name of your VM. In the following command, replace azureuser and myvm.westus.cloudapp.azure.com with the administrator user name and the fully qualified domain name (or IP address):

If you specified a passphrase when you created your key pair, enter that passphrase when prompted during the login process. The VM is added to your ~/.ssh/known_hosts file, and you won't be asked to connect again until either the public key on your Azure VM changes or the server name is removed from ~/.ssh/known_hosts.

If the VM is using the just-in-time access policy, you need to request access before you can connect to the VM. For more information about the just-in-time policy, see Manage virtual machine access using the just in time policy.

Next steps

• For more information on working with SSH key pairs, see Detailed steps to create and manage SSH key pairs.

• If you have difficulties with SSH connections to Azure VMs, see Troubleshoot SSH connections to an Azure Linux VM.