Using Azure Key Vault To Generate Rsa Key Pair
- Using Azure Key Vault To Generate Rsa Key Pair Chart
- Using Azure Key Vault To Generate Rsa Key Pair Signature V1
- Using Azure Key Vault To Generate Rsa Key Pair Parameters To Support Ssh Version 2
Nov 03, 2016 SSH KEYS allow us to connect to VMs without using passwords but by passing a private key that can be managed by you or your organization. For more about SSH. There are three parts to this tutorial: A. Generate an SSH Key B. Create a VM in Azure that uses the public key C. Connect to VM using SSH keys. Prerequisites: Bash. That generates a 2048-bit RSA key pair, encrypts them with a password you provide and writes them to a file. You need to next extract the public key file. You will use this, for instance, on your web server to encrypt content so that it can only be read with the private key. Export the RSA Public Key to a File. This is a command that is.
-->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:
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:
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.
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.
Azure Key Vault helps solve the following problems:
- Secrets Management - Azure Key Vault can be used to Securely store and tightly control access to tokens, passwords, certificates, API keys, and other secrets
- Key Management - Azure Key Vault can also be used as a Key Management solution. Azure Key Vault makes it easy to create and control the encryption keys used to encrypt your data.
- Certificate Management - Azure Key Vault is also a service that lets you easily provision, manage, and deploy public and private Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer (TLS/SSL) certificates for use with Azure and your internal connected resources.
- Store secrets backed by Hardware Security Modules - The secrets and keys can be protected either by software or FIPS 140-2 Level 2 validated HSMs
Why use Azure Key Vault?
Centralize application secrets
Centralizing storage of application secrets in Azure Key Vault allows you to control their distribution. Key Vault greatly reduces the chances that secrets may be accidentally leaked. When using Key Vault, application developers no longer need to store security information in their application. Not having to store security information in applications eliminates the need to make this information part of the code. For example, an application may need to connect to a database. Instead of storing the connection string in the app's code, you can store it securely in Key Vault.
Your applications can securely access the information they need by using URIs. These URIs allow the applications to retrieve specific versions of a secret. There is no need to write custom code to protect any of the secret information stored in Key Vault.
Securely store secrets and keys
Secrets and keys are safeguarded by Azure, using industry-standard algorithms, key lengths, and hardware security modules (HSMs). The HSMs used are Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 Level 2 validated.
Access to a key vault requires proper authentication and authorization before a caller (user or application) can get access. Authentication establishes the identity of the caller, while authorization determines the operations that they are allowed to perform.
Authentication is done via Azure Active Directory. Authorization may be done via role-based access control (RBAC) or Key Vault access policy. RBAC is used when dealing with the management of the vaults and key vault access policy is used when attempting to access data stored in a vault.
Azure Key Vaults may be either software- or hardware-HSM protected. For situations where you require added assurance you can import or generate keys in hardware security modules (HSMs) that never leave the HSM boundary. Microsoft uses nCipher hardware security modules. You can use nCipher tools to move a key from your HSM to Azure Key Vault.
Finally, Azure Key Vault is designed so that Microsoft does not see or extract your data.
Monitor access and use
Once you have created a couple of Key Vaults, you will want to monitor how and when your keys and secrets are being accessed. You can monitor activity by enabling logging for your vaults. You can configure Azure Key Vault to:
- Archive to a storage account.
- Stream to an event hub.
- Send the logs to Azure Monitor logs.
You have control over your logs and you may secure them by restricting access and you may also delete logs that you no longer need.
Simplified administration of application secrets
Using Azure Key Vault To Generate Rsa Key Pair Chart
When storing valuable data, you must take several steps. Security information must be secured, it must follow a life cycle, and it must be highly available. Azure Key Vault simplifies the process of meeting these requirements by:
- Removing the need for in-house knowledge of Hardware Security Modules.
- Scaling up on short notice to meet your organization's usage spikes.
- Replicating the contents of your Key Vault within a region and to a secondary region. Data replication ensures high availability and takes away the need of any action from the administrator to trigger the failover.
- Providing standard Azure administration options via the portal, Azure CLI and PowerShell.
- Automating certain tasks on certificates that you purchase from Public CAs, such as enrollment and renewal.
In addition, Azure Key Vaults allow you to segregate application secrets. Applications may access only the vault that they are allowed to access, and they can be limited to only perform specific operations. You can create an Azure Key Vault per application and restrict the secrets stored in a Key Vault to a specific application and team of developers.
Integrate with other Azure services
As a secure store in Azure, Key Vault has been used to simplify scenarios like:
Using Azure Key Vault To Generate Rsa Key Pair Signature V1
- The always encrypted functionality in SQL server and Azure SQL Database
- Azure App Service.
Key Vault itself can integrate with storage accounts, event hubs, and log analytics.