Getting started with SSH on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

February 25, 2019

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# create file and folder structure for SSH
cd
mkdir ~/.ssh
touch ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

# set appropriate permissions
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

# generate SSH key
ssh-keygen -t rsa ~/.ssh/ninja

# make sure SSH is running
# eval `ssh-agent -s`
eval $(ssh-agent)

# load SSH key
ssh-add ~/.ssh/ninja

save your config

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# save SSH host configs
touch ~/.ssh/config
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config
nano ~/.ssh/config

add your config settings

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# ~/.ssh/config

# server on Amazon LightSail
Host lightsail
  HostName tornado.mycooldomain.com
  User kunami
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
  Port 4234

Now you can just do ssh lightsail everytime you need to connect and it'll pickup the key, host and port etc. from the saved config.

load your SSH key

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ssh-add ~/.ssh/ninja

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Enter passphrase for /home/tasiomind/.ssh/ninja:
Identity added: /home/tasiomind/.ssh/ninja (/home/tasiomind/.ssh/ninja)

Troubleshooting

Gettings Could not open a connection to your authentication agent. when trying to ssh-add. Make sure that ssh agent is running by running the eval $(ssh-agent) command