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ENS:CreateKeyPair

Last Updated:Mar 27, 2026

Creates an SSH key pair.

Operation description

An SSH key pair consists of a public key and a private key. ENS stores the public key and returns the unencrypted private key that is PEM-encoded in the PKCS#8 format. You must securely lock away the private key.

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Test

RAM authorization

The table below describes the authorization required to call this API. You can define it in a Resource Access Management (RAM) policy. The table's columns are detailed below:

  • Action: The actions can be used in the Action element of RAM permission policy statements to grant permissions to perform the operation.

  • API: The API that you can call to perform the action.

  • Access level: The predefined level of access granted for each API. Valid values: create, list, get, update, and delete.

  • Resource type: The type of the resource that supports authorization to perform the action. It indicates if the action supports resource-level permission. The specified resource must be compatible with the action. Otherwise, the policy will be ineffective.

    • For APIs with resource-level permissions, required resource types are marked with an asterisk (*). Specify the corresponding Alibaba Cloud Resource Name (ARN) in the Resource element of the policy.

    • For APIs without resource-level permissions, it is shown as All Resources. Use an asterisk (*) in the Resource element of the policy.

  • Condition key: The condition keys defined by the service. The key allows for granular control, applying to either actions alone or actions associated with specific resources. In addition to service-specific condition keys, Alibaba Cloud provides a set of common condition keys applicable across all RAM-supported services.

  • Dependent action: The dependent actions required to run the action. To complete the action, the RAM user or the RAM role must have the permissions to perform all dependent actions.

Action

Access level

Resource type

Condition key

Dependent action

ens:CreateKeyPair

create

*All Resource

*

None None

Request parameters

Parameter

Type

Required

Description

Example

KeyPairName

string

Yes

The name of the key pair. The name must conform to the following naming conventions:

  • The name must be 2 to 128 characters in length, and can contain letters, digits, colons (:), underscores (_), and hyphens (-).

  • It must start with a letter but cannot start with http:// or https://.

TestKeyPairName

Response elements

Element

Type

Description

Example

object

KeyPairFingerPrint

string

The fingerprint of the key pair. The message-digest algorithm 5 (MD5) is used based on the public key fingerprint format defined in RFC 4716. For more information, see RFC 4716.

7880c1ad4687fdbf7a6da2131****

KeyPairId

string

The ID of the SSH key pair.

ssh-5lywanlkih1zo9yl8eg****

KeyPairName

string

The name of the key pair.

TestKeyPairName

PrivateKeyBody

string

The private key of the key pair. The private key is encoded with PEM in the PKCS#8 format.

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----\nMIIEogIBAAKCAQE****

RequestId

string

The ID of the request.

473469C7-AA6F-4DC5-B3DB-A3DC0DE3C83E

Examples

Success response

JSON format

{
  "KeyPairFingerPrint": "7880c1ad4687fdbf7a6da2131****",
  "KeyPairId": "ssh-5lywanlkih1zo9yl8eg****",
  "KeyPairName": "TestKeyPairName",
  "PrivateKeyBody": "-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----\\nMIIEogIBAAKCAQE****",
  "RequestId": "473469C7-AA6F-4DC5-B3DB-A3DC0DE3C83E"
}

Error codes

HTTP status code

Error code

Error message

Description

400 MissingParameter The input parameter that is mandatory for processing this request is not supplied.
400 NoPermission Permission denied.
400 InvalidParameter.%s The specified field %s invalid. Please check it again.
400 InvalidParameter The errorMessage is %s. Please check it again.
400 InvalidSecurityGroupId.NotFound The specified SecurityGroupId does not exist. The specified security group ID does not exist.
400 SecurityGroupRuleConflict.Duplicated The SecurityGroup rule already exists. duplicate security group rules.
400 AuthorizationLimitExceed The limit of authorization records in the security group reaches. The number of security group rules exceeds the limit.
400 ens.interface.error An error occurred while calling the API.
400 CallInterface Call Interface Happen Error. An error occurred when you call the operation.

See Error Codes for a complete list.

Release notes

See Release Notes for a complete list.