My Oracle Support Banner

PuTTYgen Error "Couldn't load private key (unrecognized key type)" When Opening OCI Private SSH Key (Doc ID 2720326.1)

Last updated on MAY 03, 2023

Applies to:

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure - Version N/A and later
Linux x86-64 on Oracle Public Cloud

Symptoms

When creating a new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) instance, the option of generating a new SSH key pair is selected and the provided ssh private key is downloaded.

OCI generates an OpenSSH format key that cannot be used directly by PuTTY, so PuTTYgen is used to open the SSH private key and convert it to the PuTTY PPK format.

When performing this process, PuTTYgen is unable to open the OCI generated private key, displaying the error message:

Couldn't load private key (unrecognized key type)

The private key is valid and can be used from a Linux or Mac system to connect to the instance without issues.

Changes

 

Cause

To view full details, sign in with your My Oracle Support account.

Don't have a My Oracle Support account? Click to get started!

In this Document
Symptoms
Changes
Cause
Solution


My Oracle Support provides customers with access to over a million knowledge articles and a vibrant support community of peers and Oracle experts.