PPK

Generated by scripts/gen-format-pages.py from docs/data/format-metadata/, FILE_FORMATS.csv and docs/formats-master.csv. Do not edit by hand: change the source, then run the script.

PuTTY Private Key Preview.

At a glance


Purpose	A PuTTY private key file (.ppk, versions 1 to 3): a text envelope around an SSH key pair.
Extensions	`.ppk`
Poka parser	`poka-ppk`
Viewer	`poka-metadata-card-viewer`
Depth tier	Metadata card (see Depth tiers)
Breadth tier	B4 Summary (see Breadth tiers)

How much Poka reads

B4 Summary. The container and metadata are read and summarised (counts, properties, structure), but the main content is not rendered.

Confidence: medium (the reviewer read the code). Basis: Reviewed 2026-10-26: read parsers/poka-ppk/src/main.rs (259 lines) and plugin.json. No unit tests or tests/samples.rs; the corpus has no .ppk and .ppk-putty sample. Covers .ppk and .ppk-putty. The card reads the envelope: PuTTY version, algorithm, encryption, comment, public and private blob sizes, an estimated key size, the MAC, and for version 3 the Argon2 key-derivation settings. Judgement: B4: the envelope is decoded, but neither key blob is.

What Poka does not read

The public key blob is not decoded (no fingerprint, exact size or curve); the key size is estimated from the blob's length
The private key is never decoded or decrypted (by design)
The MAC is not verified

Libraries

Libraries Poka uses or has assessed for this format, with the status, licence and language the registry records.

kayrus/putty (candidate; Apache-2.0; Go; https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/kayrus/putty) — Parses PuTTY private key files (NewFromFile); supported PPK versions not stated on the page.
putty-key (candidate; MIT; Ruby; https://www.rubydoc.info/gems/putty-key) — Reads and writes .ppk formats 2 and 3; encrypted format 3 needs libargon2.

Sources

parsers/poka-ppk/src/main.rs
parsers/poka-ppk/plugin.json