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SSH as a cPanel user

Jason Brown
  • Updated

Introduction

Steps to connect to your server as a cPanel user via SSH can be found in this article.

 

Procedure

You'll want to first make sure that the account has normal or Jailed Shell which can be set via WHM / Account Functions / Manage Shell Access.

 

To use PuTTY to connect to your server via SSH, perform the following steps:

 

1. Download and install the PuTTY client.
2. From the Windows Start menu, open the client.
3. In the Session interface, enter the hostname or IP address of the server in the Host Name (or IP address) text box (for example, 192.0.2.0).
4. Enter the port number in the Port text box (for example, 22).
5. Select the SSH protocol.
6. Click Open.
7. Enter your cPanel account’s username.
8. Enter your cPanel account’s password.

 

To log in to a server via SSH with PuTTY and a public key, perform the following steps:

 

1. From the Windows Start menu, open the client.

2. Navigate to the PuTTY Key Generator interface.

3. Under the Actions heading, click Generate. PuTTY will generate the key and display the result under the Key menu.

4. Copy the public key and paste it in the .ssh/authorized_keys file.

5. Enter a passphrase in the Key passphrase and Confirm passphrase text boxes.

6. Click Save private key and save the key as a .ppk file.

7. In the Session interface, from the Saved Sessions menu, select your preferred authorization session, and click Load.

8. Navigate to the Auth interface under the SSH category.

9. Click Browse, select the private key file to upload, and click Open.

10. Navigate to cPanel’s Manage SSH Keys interface (Home >> Security >> SSH Access >> Manage SSH Keys) and import the server’s keys.

 

To log in to your MacOS or Linux server via SSH, perform the following steps:

 

1. Open a terminal session.

2. Run the following command: ssh -p port user@IP where port represents the port number, user represents your username, and IP represents your IP address. For example:

 

ssh -p 22 user@192.0.2.0

 

Manage SSH keys

This section of cPanel’s SSH Access interface allows you to create, import, manage, and remove SSH keys. The system will use these keys when you confirm that a specific computer has the right to access your website’s information with SSH.

 

For a comprehensive list of details or other concerns regarding this, you may refer to our SSH Access Documentation. The documentation contains information regarding connecting over MacOS Terminal, and on using an SSH key.

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