How do I connect in via SSH When I'm using Windows?

We're glad you asked!

Wherever you see double quotes " " please always leave them out when you use the information in this article.

1. Please login to your cPanel Account
2. Type "ssh" into the cPanel Search Tools box
3. Select SSH Access
4. Click Manage Keys
5. Click generate a new key (we don't accept password authentication on its own for security reasons)
6. Provide a password that you will be prompted for when you use the key (this password will be independent of your cPanel account password). Please keep this in a safe and secure place - you'll need it whenever you connect via SSH). 
7. Click Generate Key
8. Go back and click manage and authorise the key that you've just created (it won't work otherwise!).
9. Go back and scroll down to "private keys" and click view/download. At the bottom, under "Convert the [key name] key, to PPK format", enter the password for the key, press convert
10. Scroll down to the bottom of the private key that has been created, and click download. (Please be careful not to download the public key as that should stay solely on the server).
11. Download this private key in your "%USERPROFILE%\.ssh\" folder (where USERPROFILE should be your username when downloading but it can be used as a shortcut within your command prompt (cmd)). 
12. The next steps depend on whether you are using a version of Windows with ssh.exe installed or whether you are using an older version and need to use the free program: Putty. 
13. ssh.exe first:

-> If you've given your rsa key a different name, please read the additional important information below this numbered list. There's an example coming up!

13a. Next, presuming you've left your key as "id_rsa" you can use the command in terminal: ssh -p 1014 [email protected]

->You'll be prompted for the key password that you created in step 6. 

(14) Putty (Please only follow steps in step 14 if you are using Putty - otherwise you can skip to the final section). 

Putty is, in a lot of ways more simple. 

14a. Next, load a session by connecting to [email protected], ensuring that you specify the port of the remote server as 1014 before you connect. 

14b. Go to SSH -> Auth -> Credentials and click browse. 

14c. Select the private key that you have downloaded and saved in yourusername\.ssh\id_rsa

14d. Go to Session and click Save. 

The private key is now attached to the [email protected] putty profile for future use.

I've changed the name of my key

-> This is irrelevant for Putty Users but please read on if you are using ssh.exe:

So, if you've changed the name of your ssh key from id_rsa to harry_rsa for example, your cPanel username was harrycp and your website was google.co.uk:

To connect (instead of step 13a), you'll need the following command:

"ssh -i %USERPROFILE%\.ssh\harry_rsa -p 1014 [email protected]" (without quotes). 

You'd then proceed with the password (the one you gave your certificate when you created it).

All SSH Users

You can find your cPanel username from within your account, when you first log in, in the first information box - it's called "current user" and it comes before the brackets. If you are somewhere else within cPanel, please click "tools" on the left sidebar.

->The password that is requested is different from your cPanel password. Your cPanel password and your SSH Key password are independent of each other unless you've deliberately left them the same. 

We recommend that they are different. You can use cPanel's password suggestion tool, whenever you set a password in cPanel, to ensure great security for your website hosting and Email management.

If you have any questions, you are welcome to raise a support ticket from your client area, use online chat or please feel free to telephone us.

Hopefully this is helpful!