DreamHost SSH
SSH is protocol used to communicate securely between two systems. SSH stands for Secure SHell. SSH is a replacement of telnet protocol. Using SSH you can login to your server and do necessary tasks directly. DreamHost allows SSH access to their clients. Many shared web hosting companies provides jail shell access. DreamHost is different. It allows you normal shell access. Yep, Normal shell access.
Benefits of SSH account
There are many benefits of using SSH account. If you know some of the basic commands in Linux, you can do many tasks quickly and easily.
- You can edit files directly on the server using Linux text editors like vi & emacs.
- Create an empty file using just a single command. I need to create an empty file to authenticate my site in Google site map.
- Setup cron jobs. I use cron job to automatically create sitemap of my sites.
- Create a .htaccess file.
- Upload & download files using SCP.
- Check site stats in text mode using links command.
There are even many more things you can do like testing your php & perl files, un taring and installing any open source softwares, take a backup of your files etc... using SSH account. SSH makes all tasks easier.
How To Enable SSH Access
You need to create one user at the time of sign up. This user is not allowed SSH access for security reason by default. So if you want to use SSH access then you need to enable it for your user. For enabling SSH access go to Users->Manage Users.
Click on the Edit button for user to which you want to allow SSH access.
On the next screen, in the user account type, select Shell account check box. Click on the Save Changes button and you will get a user account with SSH access.
How To Use SSH Account
After enabling the Shell access, you can access server using SSH client. On Linux, most of the distribution includes SSH client in standard version. So you can directly access server from terminal using 'ssh' command.
ssh user@servername.com
On Windows, you need to download putty client to access the server. In putty client, fill the server name. Select the connection type ssh and click on open.
On the next screen, you need to give username and password.
Once you give correct username and password, you will be login to the server.
Transfer Files Using SCP
SCP uses SSH protocol to transfer files. On Linux, you can directly use SCP command to transfer files to and from server. On Windows, you need to download WinSCP client. You can use WinSCP client as replacement of your FTP client. Using SCP is a more secure than FTP. If your ftp client supports sftp, then use sftp but don't use ftp. For using WinSCP, like putty you need to give server name and user details.
After that you will be able to see files stored at server place.
You can drag & drop files to copy files to and from server. If your html editor has inbuilt sftp capability than there is no need to use WinSCP client.
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