Connect With SSH

Manage your instance using a terminal and SSH for secure remote access.

Prerequisites

Before connecting, ensure you have:

• IP Address: Available on the instance card or Instance Overview.
• Default Username: Depends on the OS image; see the table below.
• Authentication Method: SSH Key (recommended) or the Provisioning Password shown on the instance’s Overview tab (see below).

Default username by OS

OS image	Default username
Ubuntu	ubuntu
Debian	debian
Rocky Linux	rocky
AlmaLinux	almalinux
CentOS	centos
Oracle Linux	cloud-user
Fedora	fedora

If an image has no distribution-specific user, it may use root. The exact username is shown in Instance Overview. Windows instances use RDP, not SSH.

Where to find the password

If you deployed without an SSH key, open the instance’s Overview tab and reveal the Provisioning Password: click the eye icon to show it, or the copy icon to copy it. Use it with the default username above.

Generate an SSH Key Pair

An SSH key pair has a private key you keep secret and a public key you add to your account or instance. Create one in your terminal.

On macOS and Linux:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "you@example.com"

Press Enter to accept the default path (~/.ssh/id_ed25519), then set a passphrase when prompted. On older systems without Ed25519 support, use RSA:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "you@example.com"

On Windows 10 and later, the same ssh-keygen command works in PowerShell. The keys land in %USERPROFILE%\.ssh\.

Print the public key to copy it:

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Add the public key to your account or instance under SSH Keys. Keep the private key (~/.ssh/id_ed25519) private and never share it.

Connecting

Open a terminal (Command Prompt/PowerShell on Windows, built-in terminal on macOS/Linux).

With SSH Key:

ssh -i /path/to/your/private/key username@ip_address

With password:

ssh username@ip_address

Example:

ssh root@192.168.1.1

See also

• Connect With RDP
• Console Access
• SSH Keys