Connect with SSH

• Connect with your own SSH client
  • Generate public & private keys
  • Upload public key
  • Connect via SSH
    • Connect with PuTTY (Windows)
    • Error messages during login
      • Error: Permission denied (publickey)
      • Error: No hostkey for host
  • Reuse connections with ControlMaster
  • SSH‑key‑forwarding

You can easily connect via SSH to your web hosting plan, directly through our Control Panel. This is done under the menu item "Website" -> "SSH access" in our Control Panel.

¶Connect with your own SSH client

To connect via SSH from your own computer to a Simply.com web hosting plan, you need to add a public key to the web hosting plan.

¶Generate public & private keys

If you do not already have an SSH key pair, you can generate one with the Linux command

ssh-keygen -t rsa

This will generate both a private and a public key on your computer.
Your public key will be located in the file "id_rsa.pub", and your private key will be located in the file "id_rsa".

You can also use the Windows program PuTTYgen.

¶Upload public key

Once you have your public key, you need to go to the Simply.com control panel, and under the individual product, from the "Website" menu, select the "SSH access" item. Here you can add your public SSH key. Once this is done, you can connect via SSH to your web hosting plan.

¶Connect via SSH

You need to connect via SSH to ssh.simply.com, using the same username as for e.g. FTP.
To be able to log in via SSH, you must have uploaded a public key.

¶Connect with PuTTY (Windows)

If you want to connect with PuTTY you can use Pageant to provide your private key when connecting.

¶Error messages during login

¶Error: Permission denied (publickey)

This error occurs when you do not send your private key during login. Check the configuration of your SSH client.
Make sure you send the key.

¶Error: No hostkey for host

This means that your SSH client is missing the server's host key in known_hosts. Add it with:

ssh-keyscan -t rsa,ecdsa,ed25519 ssh.simply.com >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts

¶Reuse connections with ControlMaster

If you make many short SSH connections (e.g. via scripts, rsync or git), you can save time with OpenSSH's ControlMaster. It reuses an existing connection, so subsequent connections do not have to go through the entire login process again.

Add the following to your ~/.ssh/config:

Host simply
    HostName ssh.simply.com
    User ditbrugernavn
    ControlMaster auto
    ControlPath ~/.ssh/cm-%r@%h:%p
    ControlPersist 10m

After this, the first connection (ssh simply) creates a "master" connection, which all subsequent connections reuse – making them almost instantaneous.

You can also use ControlMaster directly from the command line, without editing your ~/.ssh/config:

ssh -o ControlMaster=auto -o ControlPath=~/.ssh/cm-%r@%h:%p -o ControlPersist=10m ditbrugernavn@ssh.simply.com

Subsequent connections with the same ControlPath then reuse the master connection.

¶SSH‑key‑forwarding

SSH‑key‑forwarding (agent forwarding) is not supported on Simply.com servers. If you need to make SSH connections from your web server to other servers, you must use alternative methods, such as placing a dedicated key on the server.