SSH Keys - PuTTyGen or Portal Keys not working

Question

I've tried many different ways to generate a key to access my SSH and none seem to work. I get 2 or 3 different error messages all different from different places. I'll do my best to explain and hopefully we can figure something out!

Ok to to start I used

https://portal.azure.com/#create/Microsoft.SshKey

and thought it was all ok. I did what this page told me to

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/ssh-keys-portal
ssh -i C:/.ssh/myKey.pem USERNAME@10.0.0.1

and still got this error

USERNAME@10.0.0.1: Permission denied (publickey).

I've taken my info out but you get the point. Than I try PuTTyGen and with the same code above I get this error

publickey: The term 'publickey' is not recognized as a name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or executable program.
Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

Now I know my key is located where I say it is and still tells me its not there. So now I try this option

az vm create \
--resource-group GROUP \
--name Server \
--image UbuntuLTS \
--admin-username USERNAME \
--ssh-key-value C:/.ssh/myKeyPriv.ppk \
--generate-ssh-keys

Seemed to work after adding --generate-ssh-keys to it not found on this page

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/ssh-from-windows#create-a-vm-using-your-key

But than I get this error

SSH key files 'C:/.ssh/myKeyPriv.ppk.private' and 'C:/.ssh/myKeyPriv.ppk' have been generated under ~/.ssh to allow SSH access to the VM. If using machines without permanent storage, back up your keys to a safe location.
Deployment failed. Correlation ID: 5069b9ce-c5c5-4267-ae23-eff333a6e5e5. {
"error": {
"code": "PropertyChangeNotAllowed",
"message": "Changing property 'linuxConfiguration.ssh.publicKeys' is not allowed.",
"target": "linuxConfiguration.ssh.publicKeys"
}
}

So I have no idea where to go from here. I've tried Powershell as Admin on my computer to generate keys before and its worked to connect to Google Cloud and Raspberry Pi's no problem. This I don't know. Any advice would be great.

I will update this post if anything changes.

Thanks!

EDIT--------------------

Well made it a little further but now I get this message

ssh-copy-id -i ssh-keygen.pub USERNAME@Tablet .southcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com
/usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: Source of key(s) to be installed: "ssh-keygen.pub"
/usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: attempting to log in with the new key(s), to filter out any that are already installed
/usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: 1 key(s) remain to be installed -- if you are prompted now it is to install the new keys
USERNAME@Tablet .southcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com: Permission denied (publickey).

Still telling me I have a public key? I used this command to get here

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"

ssh-copy-id -i ssh-keygen.pub USERNAME@Tablet .southcentralus.cloudapp.azure.com

So still working at it. Only been 4 hours now....

Answer 1

@Felbdogg Apologies for the delay in response and all the inconvenience caused because of the issue.

Can you check the below method and let me know if you are able to SSH to your VM or not?

1) Create Azure VM using the steps mentioned here

2)Now keep the key setting to Generate new Key Pair as below:

3)Click on Next you will get option to save public and private key and proceed for VM creation:

4)Now once VM is created go to Connect option and copy below data:

5) Now if you have a Windows machine open Powershell and paste the above and change the private key path with the path of file you downloaded in Step 2 and Click Enter :

You are now connected to VM and you can check same as below:

• Similarly in case of Putty method select already existing key option on Azure Portal while VM creation In PuttyGen Generate a new key and download Private and Public Key to your machine. Copy the Public Key Value and paste it in the space for Already existing key on Azure Portal as below:
• Now Click on Review and Create.
• Copy the value of Public IP of VM from the portal: -Open Putty on your system and paste the copied IP value to Session > Hostname:
• Click on SSH option on right.Click on Auth > on bottom under Auth Parameter for Private file click on Browse and select the Private key you saved after generating from PuttyGen:
• Click on Open. It will prompt you as below select Yes:
• Now once you get screen put the username which you entered while VM creation click enter and you are good to go :

Same will hold for any method.

Hope it helps!!!

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