Secure Shell — more commonly known as SSH — is a cryptographic network protocol that allows users to securely access one computer from another over an unsecured network.
SSH uses public-key cryptography to authenticate users and machines; a system administrator will add the public key of any user who must access a remote computer to a specific location in its filesystem. On Unix-like systems, authorized public keys are typically stored in the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file. Any user who presents a private SSH key that matches one of the public keys on the remote machine will be able to access it.
For more educational resources related to SSH, please visit our resources on How To Set Up SSH Keys and How To Use SFTP to Securely Transfer Files with a Remote Server.
Thanks for learning with the DigitalOcean Community. Check out our offerings for compute, storage, networking, and managed databases.
This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.
You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!
Featured on Community
Get our biweekly newsletter
Sign up for Infrastructure as a Newsletter.
Hollie's Hub for Good
Working on improving health and education, reducing inequality, and spurring economic growth? We'd like to help.
Become a contributor
Get paid to write technical tutorials and select a tech-focused charity to receive a matching donation.