{"id":2295,"date":"2020-06-09T21:57:30","date_gmt":"2020-06-09T13:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wesbytes.com\/guide\/?post_type=kb&#038;p=2295"},"modified":"2026-03-17T11:34:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T03:34:43","slug":"connect-linux-server-ssh","status":"publish","type":"kb","link":"https:\/\/www.servergigabit.com\/guide\/kb\/connect-linux-server-ssh","title":{"rendered":"SSH How to Connect to a Linux Server : 3 Complete Step-Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mkb-anchor mkb-clearfix mkb-back-to-top-inline\">\n<h2><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ipxo.com\/app\/uploads\/2022\/02\/What-is-SSH-640x359.jpg\" alt=\"SSH\" width=\"440\" height=\"247\" \/><\/h2>\n<h2 class=\"mkb-anchor__title\"><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p>Secure Shell (SSH) is a UNIX-based command interface and protocol for securely getting access to a remote computer. SSH is actually a suite of three utilities slogin, ssh, and scp that are secure versions of the earlier UNIX utilities, rlogin, rsh, and rcp. SSH commands are encrypted and secured in several ways. Both ends of the client\/server connection are authenticated using a digital certificate, and passwords are protected by being encrypted.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mkb-anchor mkb-clearfix mkb-back-to-top-inline\">\n<p class=\"mkb-anchor__title\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">WARNING\u00a0:<\/span> Please read our root access or Administrator access disclaimer below before you continue to read this article.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>One of the greatest benefits of subscribing to our VPS or (Dedicated Server) plans is that you will have root or administrator\u2019s access to the system. With this access, you are free to install or configure applications and scripts without the limitations of a shared environment and we encourage you to do so. However, having administrator rights also mean that files may be wrongly deleted or misconfigured which may result in a VPS (or Dedicated Server) going down. Do note that some of these changes are irreversible.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Our support team is always here to assist you when you need it. However, there are situations where even we are unable to undo, like the deletion of a database, or a deletion of an important system file. In such situations, we will have to re-install the OS which may result in a potential loss of data.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"mkb-anchor mkb-clearfix mkb-back-to-top-inline\">\n<h2 class=\"mkb-anchor__title\"><strong>Initiate a SSH connection to the server<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p>First, you need to choose a SSH client.<\/p>\n<p>1. \u00a0 \u00a0Mac OS X includes the SSH client\u00a0<strong>Terminal<\/strong>\u00a0by default. Go to\u00a0<strong>Application<\/strong>\u00a0&gt;\u00a0<strong>Utilities<\/strong>\u00a0&gt;\u00a0<strong>Terminal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Run below command to connect to your linux server via SSH (port 22):<\/p>\n<pre>[root@client ~]# ssh root@example.domain.com -p22 The authenticity of host 'example.domain.com (192.168.2.155)' can't be established. RSA key fingerprint is 45:83:45:4a:e3:29:7e:fa:f3:c3:7d:64:ea:3a:6f:58. Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes\/no)? yes Warning: Permanently added 'example.domain.com,192.168.2.155' (RSA) to the list of known hosts. root@example.domain.com's password:<\/pre>\n<p>2. \u00a0 \u00a0Windows-based Operating Systems do not come with an SSH client by default. You can use PuTTY that can be downloaded from\u00a0<a title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/the.earth.li\/~sgtatham\/putty\/latest\/x86\/putty.exe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Once you download Putty.exe to your windows machine, double click the putty.exe file<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Enter your connection settings.\u00a0<strong>Host Name<\/strong>\u00a0or server\u00a0<strong>IP address<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>Port<\/strong>, and\u00a0<strong>Connection Type<\/strong>(Leave it as default : SSH ). Then, Click\u00a0<strong>Open\u00a0<\/strong>to initiate the SSH connection.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>If this is your first time connecting to the server from this computer, you will see the following output. Accept the connection by clicking\u00a0<strong>Yes<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Once the SSH Connection is open, you should see a terminal prompt asking for your username. Type your username (i.e. root) and press\u00a0<strong>Enter<\/strong>. Then, next it will asking you for the password. Type your password (you will NOT see your cursor moving, or any characters typed) and press\u00a0<strong>Enter<\/strong>\u00a0again.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>You will see a prompt below if you succeed to connect to the server :[root@example\u00a0~]#<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>3. \u00a0 \u00a0Linux distributions include support it by default as well. Simply start up a <strong>terminal<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Run below command to connect to your linux server via SSH (port 22):<\/p>\n<div class=\"mkb-article-text mkb-clearfix\">\n<pre>authenticity of host 'example.domain.com (192.168.2.155)' can't be established. RSA key fingerprint is 45:83:45:4a:e3:29:7e:fa:f3:c3:7d:64:ea:3a:6f:58. Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes\/no)? yes Warning: Permanently added 'example.domain.com,192.168.2.155' (RSA) to the list of known hosts. root@example.domain.com's password:<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"mkb-article-extra__hidden\"><\/div>\n<div>Please refer to the following articles <a href=\"https:\/\/www.servergigabit.com\/guide\/kb\/how-to-set-up-private-nameserver-for-linux-server\/\">How to set up private nameserver for Linux server<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview Secure Shell (SSH) is a UNIX-based command interface and protocol for securely getting access to a remote computer. SSH is actually a suite of three utilities slogin, ssh, and scp that are secure versions of the earlier UNIX utilities, rlogin, rsh, and rcp. SSH commands are encrypted and secured in several ways. Both ends of the client\/server connection are&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"kbtopic":[57],"kbtag":[1199,1272],"class_list":["post-2295","kb","type-kb","status-publish","hentry","kbtopic-linux-server","kbtag-linux-server","kbtag-ssh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servergigabit.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kb\/2295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servergigabit.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kb"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servergigabit.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/kb"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servergigabit.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servergigabit.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2295"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.servergigabit.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kb\/2295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6355,"href":"https:\/\/www.servergigabit.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kb\/2295\/revisions\/6355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servergigabit.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"kbtopic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servergigabit.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kbtopic?post=2295"},{"taxonomy":"kbtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servergigabit.com\/guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kbtag?post=2295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}