title: Connecting to a gcloud vm instance via ssh
body: <h2>Problem:</h2>
  <p>I cannot connect via ssh to my vm instance on gcloud</p>
  <h2>Description:</h2>
  <p>I am using gcloud with my own domain as the user userid@mydomain.com</p>
  <ol>
  <li>I created a vm instance on Google Cloud Engine</li>
  <li>I installed &quot;WordPress Multisite Certified by Bitnami&quot; via Cloud Launcher</li>
  </ol>
  <p>The vm is up and running, I can even access a wordpress page.
  In the section &quot;VM Instances&quot;, I click the button SSH, but cannot connect, the window prompts:</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>Transferring SSH keys to the VM.</p>
  <p>Could not connect, retrying (1/3)...</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>The log does not contain any errors.</p>
  <p><strong>Attempt 1: Gcloud API</strong></p>
  <p>In the Windows CMD, I can successfully connect by calling</p>
  <pre><code>gcloud compute ssh userid_mydomain_com@MY_INSTANCE_NAME
  </code></pre>
  <p>It generates file in C:\Users\ACCOUNT_NAME.ssh, but the file google_compute_engine.pub contains my Windows account name at the end in the format HOST\account_name@host, not my gcloud user name (userid@mydomain.com)!</p>
  <p>I retried the ssh button, but it still failed.
  I then pasted the content from the file google_compute_engine.pub into the ssh key field, but it still doesnt work, perhaps due to the wrong user name? I changed the name, but that didnt help.</p>
  <p><strong>Attempt 2: PuttyGen</strong></p>
  <p>I also tried generating ssh key with PuttyGen as described <a href="https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/adding-removing-ssh-keys#createsshkeys" rel="nofollow noreferrer" title="here">here</a> and used userid@mydomain.com in the key comment. With or without the newly generated public key in the vm instance configuraton, I can not ssh into the vm.</p>
  <h2>Question:</h2>
  <p>How can I access my vm on gcloud via the ssh button and via putty?</p>
  <h2>Update:</h2>
  <p>I can connect to my vm instance using Putty and WinSCP.
  I entered the keyfile provided in the Bitnami launchpad and the user name 'bitnami'. The ssh buttons, however, still dont make me enter.</p>