Generate a Secure Shell (SSH) key pair for an SFTP dropbox

These features are only available to partners using YouTube's Content Manager to manage their copyrighted content.

YouTube requires that you connect to your YouTube dropbox using a Secure Shell (SSH) connection. SSH is a network protocol that ensures secure data transfer.

SSH authenticates you using public-key cryptography. You create a pair of keys: a private key that resides on your client computer and a public key that your dropbox server uses. Both keys have to be in place for your computer to connect to your dropbox.

You need to provide your partner representative with your public SSH key before they can create your dropbox. The public key is a string that starts with ssh-rsa, ends with your email address, and has a long generated string in the middle. For example:

ssh-rsa
AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQCXsM9ycbHV6E6t2L+B4p/uYHn9Q0jmu5gU XMYnFnnf4l39xrznfDo8KCASzRrqUkRnuzrno059CvZVzcljkbwWLzKKoE1EwbzH L3nYahMB4MdYNWhBbHbB+ybq6RNO7hkoKDBIQCfqQDY0FEB6sV3d3F1WYl0bAMjp 15yyZJzMKa/rRnZKWetHlcL1X+gFWmW2hQ93foPD463gb58/25GujjsS/tzjngw7 UJMVkm08U1QEY3z3DE/R++7ovJozTCzH0CTNDN0AH3/oSC3dmG+yDh3ZXFATjWjy PXJSOziNrp9TXgJhlqSmoHcPvpotMVjx21kIZ+T+SusQmnG+hK+L
[e-mail]

Note: The key should not contain new line breaks.

Be sure that the public key you send to your partner representative includes your email address at the end.

To generate an SSH key pair on a Windows machine:

1. Download PuTTYgen.exe and run it.

2. Select the RSA radio button in the Parameters section near the bottom of the page.

3. Click the Generate button.

4. Move the mouse around in the blank area as instructed, until PuTTYgen generates the key pair.

   When PuTTYgen has generated the key, it replaces the blank area with a series of text boxes, including one that shows the public key.

5. In the Key comment text box, append the email address to which you want notifications sent.

   Add the address to the end of any text that already appears in the box. Leave the other text boxes unchanged.

6. Click the Save public key button and save the public key with the name id-rsa in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\username\.ssh, where username is your Windows user name.

7. Click the Save private key button and save the private key with the name id-rsa.ppk in the same folder.

8. Copy to the clipboard the contents of the text box Public key for pasting into OpenSSH authorized_keys file.

   Make sure to copy the entire content, starting with ssh-rsa and ending with the email address you entered at step 5.

9. Close PuTTYgen.

10. Paste the public key into a text editor, remove the line breaks, and recopy the full text to the clipboard.

11. Paste the public key into an email and send it to your partner representative.

    If you are regenerating a key pair for an existing dropbox, you can paste the public key into the SSH Public Keys box on the Dropbox configuration page.

To generate an SSH key pair on a Macintosh or Linux machine:

1. Open a terminal window.

2. Enter this command line:

   ssh-keygen -t rsa

3. Select the default values for all options.

   This command generates two SSH key files, id_rsa and id_rsa.pub, in the directory home/username/.ssh, where username is your user name.

4. Send the public key file id_rsa.pub to your partner representative.