This guide shows you how to generate a key pair for SSH authentication with VMs.
Requirements
This guide assumes you are working on Linux. Use latest Ubuntu LTS for best compatibility.
Creating an SSH Key Pair
Use ssh-keygen to generate a new key pair:
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f <filename>
The default filename is ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.
It is recommended to protect the key with a strong password.
The public key is saved to <filename>.pub.
For example, to view the public key of the key with default filename:
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
The public key can be used with the machine Terraform module to authenticate with cloned VMs.
The cloud_init_public_keys variable accepts a string of multiple SSH public keys in the following form:
cloud_init_public_keys = EOF<<
ssh-ed25519 REDACTED lior@workstation
ssh-ed25519 REDACTED lior@laptop
EOF
Make sure to set your public key in cloud_init_public_keys.
Once you apply the Terraform module you should be able to connect to the cloned VM with SSH.