title: AWS EC2: generating private key file out of cert-***.pem for SSH terminal access
body: <p>i have my access key, secret key, and the downloaded cert pem file.</p>
  
  <p>i understand SSH requires a private key file in order to establish a terminal SSH connection to my instance.</p>
  
  <p>what i did find through Google is that i need to use puttygen to convert my cert pem file into a private key file:</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/datacenter/connect-to-amazon-ec2-with-a-private-key-using-putty-and-pageant/5085" rel="noreferrer">http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/datacenter/connect-to-amazon-ec2-with-a-private-key-using-putty-and-pageant/5085</a></p>
  
  <p>however, all the instructions i found are based on a GUI puttygetn and i only have the CL version because i am running Linux Fedora 16 on my laptop.  i did yum PuTTy, which came with a GUI but puttygen only has a CL version.  what i tried to do in puttygen is as follows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;puttygen cert-***.pem -o default.pem 
  
  puttygen: error loading `cert-***.pem': file does not begin with OpenSSH key header
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>can anybody point what i am doing wrong and how i can use CL puttygen to convert my cert file to a private key file that is usable by SSH to connect to my instances?</p>
  
  <p>thanks in advance</p>