This tutorial will show how you can access the shell on your account. Some hosting plans may not come with shell access enabled. If you need shell access and it is not enabled, please contact us using this form. Please let us know why you are requesting shell access.

NOTE:

While having shell access can be very useful, it is also a useful tool for doing malicious activity. If we catch or have reason to believe that you are performing malicious activity on your shell account that will be grounds for immediate termination of your account. If you do not know whether performing a particular operation is malicious or not, then it probably is. At any rate, you can inquire to our Technical Support Department as to whether or not a particular operation would be deemed malicious.

The shell access that we provide is SSH or Secure SHell. This tutorial will demonstrate how to set up an SSH client to connect to your shell. Two popular Windows SSH clients are SecureCRT and Putty. You can follow the links provided to download one of those clients. There are probably other Windows based SSH clients, but these appear to be the most popular. As always use the client that you are most comfortable with. If you are using another operating system or another system, you will need to choose an SSH client for your needs. Please note that we do not provide support for any SSH client. If you have a question or comment concerning any SSH client, you will need to contact the program's maker.

Note: You can only have one shell user for your account. This user is the same as your username and password you use to access your Control Panel. While you should never give out your username and password to anyone you do not trust. If for some reason you need to give your username and password to someone so that they can access your Control Panel, but you do not want them to have shell access. Write us and let us know so that we can disable shell access on your account.

For this tutorial I will be demonstrating how to set up SSH for both the SecureCRT and Putty clients. Please select a link below:

SecureCRT

For this tutorial I used SecureCRT 4.0.7. Your version may vary, but the steps should be similiar.

After you installed SecureCRT, you will need to run the program. If it is the first time you have run SecureCRT, it may ask you to provide a path to the configuration files. The default path it has listed should suffice.

When the program starts you should see a screen similiar to:


If you do not see this screen, you can click on File --> Quick Connect and you should get a similiar screen.

Fill in the information as follows:

For my case, the domain I am connecting to is amsnac2.com and the username is amsnac2:


You can check the box beside Save Session if you do not want to have to enter this information again.

Next you will see a message about a New Host Key. This is just telling you that you have never connected to this hostname before and it is not in your SecureCRT's database.


Click on Accept & Save to avoid having this message in the future.

You will then be prompted for your password:


Enter the password for your account. This will be the same as your Control Panel password. At this point you can check the Remember my Password box, but I do not recommend this. If you are sure that the computer you are storing this one is in a secure place, then you can save the password. It is generally a bad idea to save passwords with programs on your computer, because anyone who then accesses that computer can use your saved passwords.

After you Click OK, you should be logged into your shell account. You should see a prompt that will let you know you are logged in:





Putty

Putty is a free SSH client that has gained in population over recent years. It is somewhat different than SecureCRT.

When you download Putty, there is no install procedure. You download the Windows binary. Save this exe file somewhere, and run it, to run Putty. You may want to place a shortcut onto your desktop or on your start menu.

When you start Putty for the first time you will see a screen similiar to:


Below are some options that you will need to fill out: For my example, the domain name that I want to connect to is amsnac2.com:


Now that you have it filled out, you can enter a name in the Saved Sessions textbox and click Save. This is not required, it will simply save the information you entered above into a profile with the name you save it as.

After you click Open you will see a message saying that the server's host key is not registered. This is simply telling you that you have never connected to this server and the server's identity cannot be verified. Click Yes


Now you will get a prompt asking you who you want to Login as:


Enter the username for your account and the corresponding password. This will be the same as your username and password you use to access your Control Panel. In my case, the username to my account is amsnac2:


You should now be connected to your account's shell and you can perform whatever tasks you need to.