# Generated Keypair fails. Puttygen: Couldn't load private key

**URL:** <https://community.wowza.com/t/generated-keypair-fails-puttygen-couldnt-load-private-key/616>\
**Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\
**Created:** [May 4, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/generated-keypair-fails-puttygen-couldnt-load-private-key/616 "2009-05-04T14:13:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![system](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.wowza.com/system/32/447_2.png) [@system](https://community.wowza.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/generated-keypair-fails-puttygen-couldnt-load-private-key/616/1 "2009-05-04T14:13:17Z")

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I am trying to generate the keypair as described in the help guide PDF but when I load the file into Puttygen it doesn’t accept it. It says:

> Couldn’t load private key (not a private key)

I am using WinXP command line to run the following command:

```auto
ec2-add-keypair --region us-east-1 wowza-keypair 

```

and it spits out the key as to be expected, and I save the output as wowza-keypair.ppk but when I load the file into Puttygen, it fails with the above error message.

I’m sort of stuck at this point. Any help would be appreciated!

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Lanham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c68b51/32.png) [@Richard\_Lanham](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Lanham)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 10:45pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/generated-keypair-fails-puttygen-couldnt-load-private-key/616/2 "2009-05-04T22:45:29Z")

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Try saving the key with .pem extension, and loading that into Puttygen, which create a file with the .ppk extension.

Richard

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Richard\_Lanham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c68b51/32.png) [@Richard\_Lanham](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Lanham)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 9:34am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/generated-keypair-fails-puttygen-couldnt-load-private-key/616/3 "2009-05-05T09:34:19Z")

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I follow these instructions, works every time:

[http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonEC2/gsg/2006-06-26/](http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonEC2/gsg/2006-06-26/)

I also use Firefox EC2 plugin ElasticFox to generate keys. You still have to use Puttygen

Richard

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**Author:** ![Jason\_Grunstra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3be4f8/32.png) [@Jason\_Grunstra](https://community.wowza.com/u/Jason_Grunstra)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/generated-keypair-fails-puttygen-couldnt-load-private-key/616/4 "2009-05-04T17:31:22Z")

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Tried that. Same result.

Any other ideas? Thanks.