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Connecting to your VPS over SSH for the first time

Updated: 19 October 202625 views

A VPS is handed over with full root access and no control panel unless you ordered one. The first connection is over SSH.

Find the details

Open Services in the client area and click the VPS. The login details card shows the IP address, the username (normally root on Linux) and the password behind a reveal button. The password is fetched only when you ask for it, so it is not sitting in the page.

Connect

On macOS or Linux, and on Windows 10 and later, use the terminal:

ssh root@203.0.113.10

Replace the address with your own. The first time you connect you are shown the server's key fingerprint and asked to accept it; that is normal, and from then on your machine will warn you if the fingerprint ever changes. Then enter the password. On older Windows versions, PuTTY does the same job: put the IP address in the host field, leave the port at 22 and connect.

If it will not connect

  • Check the service is Active and the machine is running. The VPS panel on the service page shows the power state and can start it.
  • Use the console. The panel has a console that reaches the machine without the network, which is how you get in when SSH is the thing that is broken (a firewall rule that locked you out, for example).
  • Check your own network. Some office and hotel networks block outbound port 22.
  • Connection refused means the machine answered but nothing is listening; timed out usually means a firewall. The two have different causes and different fixes.

Do these four things straight away

  1. Change the root password to something long and random: passwd.
  2. Add an SSH key and stop using passwords. Copy your public key up, confirm you can log in with it, and only then set PasswordAuthentication no in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and restart the SSH service.
  3. Update the system. apt update && apt upgrade on Debian or Ubuntu, dnf upgrade on a Red Hat derivative.
  4. Put a firewall up and open only the ports you actually serve.

A new machine with a password on root starts receiving automated login attempts within minutes of coming online. This is not a hypothetical.

Where the line falls

The machine is yours: the operating system, the software on it, its updates and its security are your responsibility. We run the virtualisation, the network and the hardware underneath. If you would rather not run a machine, shared hosting is the product where we do that part.