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SSH Remote access to your website

Secure Shell SSH
While FTP is the most common method of transferring files to your website, there many be times when you want a secure method of manipulating your files directly on the server. Secure Shell or SSH is one method of accomplishing this. It was design as a secure replacement for Telnet — a significantly less secure shell. Many web hosts no longer offer SSH accounts because of security concerns, but if you do a little investigating, your host might offer it upon special request.

Usually a special request will require some form of identity authentication, such as a driver’s license. The reason for this is that SSH access will give you more power, the power to attempt to circumvent server security and gain administrative (root) access. SSH comes installed on most Linux servers, and the user connects with a standard username and password. The connection uses a public-key crytography.

Once you are logged in, you will have a command-line interface, using whatever Linux or Unix shell the server offers. This could be Bash, Dash, Tsch, or something similar. If you are use to MS Dos commands on Windows, you will need to learn some of the Linux commands to safely navigate through directories and make the changes you need. You can usually edit text files — such as php and html files — with applications like “nano” or “vi”. Logging out is as simple as typing “exit”.

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