Need to use SSH on Mac? Go here.
SSH or Secure Shell is a network protocol that allows data to be exchanged using a secure channel between two networked devices. It’s used primarily on Linux and Unix based systems to access shell accounts, SSH was designed as a replacement for Telnet and other insecure remote shells, which send information, notably passwords, in plain text, leaving them open for interception. The encryption used by SSH provides confidentiality and integrity of data over an insecure network, such as the Internet.
In plain English? SSH allows you to give and receive data securely over the internet to other computers or servers. A majority of servers are Unix. This is actually one world where windows has not (and I can comfortably say, will never) taken over.
I’ll briefly discuss the items needed to log into a remote server using SSH.
First thing is you want to make sure you have SSH enabled on your server. If you contact your hosts help desk. You’ll need to pry the following information out of them:
- If SSH is enabled on your server. If not, ask that they enable it
- What domain you will use
- What port you will use
- What your username/password will be. *Most likely this username and password will be the same as yout FTP credentials
Once you get this information, you’ll need an SSH client to get into your server.
To SSH into a server, you need a third party application like PuTTY is your best bet and it’s free!
The following examples will use PuTTY which is the standard SSH tool in the windows world.
Once you launch PuTTY, You’ll see the following window. This window will look intense, but I assure you you only need a very small amount of what PuTTY does. This is gonna be cake!
Most likely your hosting provider will provide you only with the Hostname or IP to login to your sever via SSH. It should look something like this:
name.domain.com
or this
77.124.52.169
Both of these things do the same thing. They point PuTTY at a specific server on the internet.
Enter this information in the “Hostname or IP” field.
If they provide you with a “port” number. Enter that in the port field to the right of the Hostname field. If they did not provide you a port number, just leave the port to the default setting of “22″
After these fields have been properly entered, press the, “Open” button on the bottom.
NOTE:
You may notice that you didn’t have to enter a username or password. Don’t worry, you’ll have to enter that once you join the SSH session.
After you press the open button. The PuTTY window will close and something that looks like the following:
Type in your username and press enter. Then you will be asked to enter that your password:
NOTE:
Even though you don’t see the cursor moving. When you press a key, it is registered by PuTTY. This is just a security feature that is not specific to PuTTY, but ALL SSH clients.
After you successfully enter your password. You have officially SSH’d into a server!
Now it’s time to learn a few simple Linux commands and you will be able to do things that would take you hours in FTP in literally under a minute.
Stay tuned..