Connecting via SFTP using a Public Key (.pem)

Another quick reference. I had to connect to Amazon EC2 using a public .pem key. Had to google around and ask people to figure out how to connect via SFTP and access the server’s file system right from the file manager.

To connect over ssh:

chmod 600 public_key.pem && ssh -i public_key.pem user@server

For SFTP on Ubuntu:

edit the ssh config (create it if it doesn’t exist)

nano ~/.ssh/config

and put this in:

Host AnyName
IdentityFile /path/to/public_key.pem

Done. Then in Nautilus: File → Connect to Server, choose SSH and put user@server in the Server field, then hit Connect.