Product and Software: This article applies to all Aruba controllers and ArubaOS versions.
The program Secure Shell (SSH) is a secure replacement for Telnet and the Berkeley r-utilities (rlogin, rsh, rcp, and rdist). SSH provides an encrypted channel for logging into another computer over a network, executing commands on a remote computer, and moving files from one computer to another. SSH provides strong host-to-host and user authentication as well as secure encrypted communications over an insecure internet.
SSH2 is a more secure, efficient, and portable version of SSH that includes SFTP, which is functionally similar to FTP, but is SSH2 encrypted.
SSH2 key authentication is a feature that Aruba Networks currently does not support and you need to use X509 certificates for authentication. SSH2 private keys can be converted to X509 cert format. Use the same private key to generate a certificate request and have the certificate signed by a valid CA. After the certificate is signed by the CA, it can be uploaded to the controller as 'Public Cert' and used for SSH authentication.