Creating an AIX virtual machine (VM) with SSH keys for root login

Creating an AIX VM with a configured SSH key using UI

You must generate a public SSH key before you can create an AIX VM with a configured SSH key.

1. Ensure that you have the necessary account permissions and device access. Only the account owner, or a user with the Manage Users classic infrastructure permission, can adjust the permissions. For more information, see Classic infrastructure permissions and Managing device access.

2. Click Virtual server instances from the left navigation in the Power Virtual Server user interface.

3. Click Create instance.

4. In the Virtual servers section, select Add SSH Keys.

5. Enter a Key name and your previously generated Public key.

6. Click Add SSH key to add the SSH key.

7. Complete the rest of the fields to successfully create a new instance with a configured SSH key.

Creating an AIX VM with a configured SSH key using CLI

You can create a new VM with the public key with the following command (replacing the options with your own):

ibmcloud pi instance-create keytest-vm --image AIX-7200-03-03 --memory 5 --networks "cloud.ibm.com" --processors 1 --processor-type shared --key-name testkey

In this example, the ibmcloud pi instance-create command created a new AIX VM with an IP address of 172.16.7.16. You can now SSH to the AIX VM from a connected system, which is configured with the private key for testkey.

ssh root@172.16.7.16
Enter passphrase for key '/home/keytest/.ssh/id_rsa':
Last login: Fri Jul 26 16:53:22 CDT 2019 on ssh from 10.150.0.11
*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                                                                             *
*  Welcome to AIX Version 7.2!                                                *
*                                                                             *
*                                                                             *
*  Please see the README file in /usr/lpp/bos for information pertinent to    *
*  this release of the AIX Operating System.                                  *
*                                                                             *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************
# oslevel -s
7200-03-03-1914

You can find the testkey value in the authorized_keys file:

cat .ssh/authorized_keys
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQCtuQnQOc2k4zaGzE7b3xUMCjUy++s/9O9HE4fXSm7UNKoTY39zjQ8mhOwaA3HEo12tOdzdFDYHHWNOYufCcFFk61CAL6HyQGGClib1nFc1xUcgTI9Dee8zzaAsN8mIIr1CgbRELhvOsTv23U4QddpfjkcVoKfF0BAtxgauvooQdPZBoxa2rsD+BvcWnjglkYWG2aBbuzFvSl1fLMihjfej8w1lxbcsYEcJg2X96NJPLmLsEJ+XwoXfVuv0X4z8IoBzZ8UbyTlrDv73EAH34GViYfZFbrIaNnwnz/f/tuOKcINihH72YP+oZn9JeiHQ+hKpMqJAmOK2UIzYr3u+79n9 testkey

Debugging the connection

If the SSH connection to the VM instance is failing, use the -vvv option of ssh command to determine the reason of the connection failure. Each additional verbose flag in the -vvv option increases the verbosity of the ssh client session and generates a large amount of data. Therefore, use a script session to capture the ssh log data so that log data is also sent to the Standard output (STDOUT).

Run the following commands to start an SSH client debug session:

# /usr/bin/script /tmp/ssh.{host}.debug
# /usr/bin/ssh -vvv {hostname/IP_of_ssh_server}

After you end the SSH client debug session, close the script session by pressing Ctrl+D or by entering exit command.