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Key pairs

An SSH key pair gives you password-less, secure access to your Linux and BSD instances. This page explains how SSH keys work on Breqwatr Cloud and points you at the canonical pages for the account-level and per-instance flows.

How SSH keys work on Breqwatr Cloud

  • SSH keys are stored on your user account, not on the project. Add a key once and it's available on every project you're a member of.
  • At launch, the launch form shows your keys in a dropdown when the chosen image is flagged as needing one (most cloud-init Linux images). Pick a key and cloud-init injects it on first boot.
  • Windows images don't use SSH keys directly. The same private key you pick at launch decrypts the Administrator password later — see Connect to your instance.

Prerequisites

  • An OpenSSH client on your local machine (built-in on macOS and Linux; available via WSL or the OpenSSH optional feature on Windows).

Steps

1. Generate a key pair locally

Open a terminal and generate an ed25519 key (modern, short, widely supported):

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "[email protected]"

Press Enter to accept the default path (~/.ssh/id_ed25519). Set a passphrase if you want extra protection at the cost of typing it on every connection.

This creates two files:

  • ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 — the private key. Never share or upload this.
  • ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub — the public key. This is the part you give to the Portal.

If your tooling requires RSA, use ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 instead. Anywhere you see id_ed25519 below, swap in id_rsa.

2. Add the public key to your account

Open the public-key file:

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Copy the entire single line (starts with ssh-ed25519 or ssh-rsa, includes the comment at the end).

Then follow Add an SSH key to your account to paste it into your profile.

The key is synced to every project you belong to in the background; it's immediately available on the launch form once the sync finishes.

3. Pick the key at launch

On the launch form, the SSH Key section appears when the chosen image needs one. Pick your key by name.

If you have no keys yet, the form shows a yellow callout with an inline Add an SSH key button — you can add one without leaving the form.

Verification

  • Run ssh-keygen -l -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub locally; the fingerprint output matches the one shown next to the key on your profile's SSH Keys card.

  • A new instance launched with the key accepts a connection using the matching private key:

    ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 ubuntu@<instance-ip>

Next steps