Learn how to connect to your server via SSH

Introduction

All our Linux servers are provided with the SSH server enabled to allow remote connection to the server for administrative tasks. SSH stands for Secure Shell and is the standard tool for accessing remote Linux servers.

Prerequisites

In order to log in with SSH you need the following information:

– Server IP address
– Username: almost always root when the server is freshly installed unless you have set up another account
– Password: randomly assigned by our systems or specified by yourself

Those details can be found on the Services page in you Snel.com Clientarea. Click on the service you wish to see the details for.

SSH client

Several different SSH client software exists to connect with SSH. We recommend PuTTY for Windows users while macOS and Linux users can use OpenSSH which is installed by default on most systems.

Log in with PuTTY (Windows)

Download and run PuTTY. On the configuration screen fill in the IP address of your server in the field named “Host Name (or IP address)” and click on “Open”.

If this is the first time connecting with the server you will be presented with a security alert. Click on “Yes” to accept the key.

On the next screen you need to fill in your username (1), hit “Enter”, fill in your password (2) and hit “Enter” again. It’s default behavior that your password isn’t shown, don’t worry.

Afterward, you will be presented with a prompt (3). You can type in any command which needs to be executed on the server at this prompt.

Log in with OpenSSH (macOS and Linux)

The OpenSSH software comes with a server and client software. We will be using the OpenSSH client software which is ssh, which is a command-line tool.

So start a Terminal and type:

ssh [email protected]

Replace x.x.x.x with the IP address of your server. If this is the first time connecting to this server you will be presented with a security alert:

The authenticity of host 'x.x.x.x (x.x.x.x)' can't be established. RSA key fingerprint is SHA256:wwqtLW0csor4rv9jyhWqhS/BQiBRLtebL2mdECzggGg. Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

Enter “yes” and you will be asked for your password. Type your password and hit “Enter” and you will be prompted with a command prompt. You can type in any command which needs to be executed on the server at this prompt.