#Managing Key Pairs

Create, update or delete key pairs.

A key pair is stored as a Kubernetes Secret of type kubernetes.io/ssh-public-key; only the public key is kept — the platform never stores your private key. Key pairs are consumed when creating a virtual machine through Associated SSH Keys (injected via cloud-init).

#Creating Key Pairs

1. Navigate to Container Platform.

2. In the left navigation bar, click Virtualization > Key Pairs.

3. Click Create Key Pair.

   Currently, only SSH type key pairs are supported. You can manually import keys or let the system automatically generate a key pair. When using the system-generated key pair, the platform supports automatically downloading the private key to your local machine. The platform will not save the private key.

4. Click Create.

#Updating Key Pairs

1. Navigate to Container Platform.

2. In the left navigation bar, click Virtualization > Key Pairs.

3. Locate the Key Pair Name, click ⋮ > Update.

4. After re-importing or having the system generate a new key pair, click Update.

#Deleting Key Pairs

1. Navigate to Container Platform.

2. In the left navigation bar, click Virtualization > Key Pairs.

3. Locate the Key Pair Name, click ⋮ > Delete, and confirm.

#Using the API

A key pair is a Secret of type kubernetes.io/ssh-public-key whose ssh-publickey value is the public key:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: my-key
  namespace: demo
type: kubernetes.io/ssh-public-key
stringData:
  ssh-publickey: "ssh-ed25519 AAAA...example user@host"

kubectl apply -f keypair.yaml
kubectl get secret my-key -n demo -o jsonpath='{.type}{"\n"}'   # kubernetes.io/ssh-public-key
kubectl delete secret my-key -n demo

Reference the key when creating a virtual machine through Associated SSH Keys; the platform injects the public key into the guest via cloud-init ssh_authorized_keys.