How to SSH into an EC2 instance using Putty

There are a few ways that you can log into your server. You can use usernames and passwords, however, if you want to be more secure, I would suggest setting up and using SSH keys and then disabling or not having to use passwords at all. That way you can only log in to your server from a PC that has the correct key.

If you’ve been following along you should know my preference for creating keypairs on an EC2. To follow along this blog I assume your keypair was the ppk type. Lets get straight to business.

Locate the instance you created and click the instance ID

Click the connect button and note your public IP address and username

Next we launch the putty application, if you do not have it downloaded you can download it here.

Once putty is launched the first order of business is to enter your Public IP, however there’s a shortcut that saves you some time overall and that is entering your instance username followed by an @ and your Public IP.

Next we expand the SSH button on the left and select Auth.

Once that's done, click the browse button and select your keypair.ppk (my keypair is named stanocran1.ppk ) and then click open. Choose Accept should a choice box pop up.

Its this easy and simple to ssh into your EC2 instance.