SSH Access and Generating a GitHub Deploy Key

SSH access and generating a GitHub deploy key

SSH (Secure Shell) lets you connect to your hosting from the command line to run commands, manage files and deploy code. SSH has to be enabled for the hosting first; if it isn't yet, contact support.

Where to find your SSH connection details

In the customer panel, open the hosting detail and go to the Services tab. If SSH is enabled for the hosting, you'll find an SSH Access card there with your username, password, host and port.

The panel also shows the connect command right there – it uses the server's host (IP address), not your domain:

ssh username@HOST -p PORT

The SSH port is different for every hosting (allocated from the server's port range), not the standard 22. Always read the exact host and port off the SSH Access card – don't copy them from anywhere else.

The same tab also links to managing SSH keys for password-less login and to managing FTP accounts.

Generating an SSH key from the command line

Once connected via SSH (or via the web terminal, which runs the same login shell), you have a helper function called github_key:

github_key

It walks you through the whole process:

1. If a key already exists at ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, it warns you and asks for confirmation before overwriting it
2. You enter an email address, which is attached as the key comment
3. An ED25519 key pair is generated and the public part is printed for you to copy

Generating a deploy key from the panel

You can generate the same kind of key without an SSH client – directly from the panel. In the hosting detail, open the Development tab → the Deployments section, and you'll find a Deploy key card at the top. Enter an email address and click the generate button.

This card only shows up when the hosting has SSH enabled and you have deployments permission – on business-card website plans the Development tab isn't available at all.

Important: both the panel-generated key and the github_key command write to the same file, ~/.ssh/id_ed25519. They are two different ways to produce the same key – generating or regenerating it one way overwrites whatever the other method created. If you've already added the key to GitHub and later regenerate it via either method, you need to replace the public key in GitHub as well.

Generating the key from the panel additionally writes an ~/.ssh/config file with ready-made host entries for github.com, gitlab.com and bitbucket.org, so unlike the github_key command you don't need any extra SSH configuration.

Adding the key to GitHub

1. Copy the public key shown (it starts with ssh-ed25519)
2. In your GitHub repository, go to Settings → Deploy keys
3. Click Add deploy key
4. Paste the key and give it a name (e.g. "CloudWeb hosting")
5. Only check Allow write access if you need git push from the hosting too – read-only is enough for a normal deployment

Cloning and updating a repository

cd /var/www/html
git clone git@github.com:your-account/your-repo.git .

cd /var/www/html
git pull origin main

You can also run cloning and pulling straight from the Deployments section in the panel, instead of the command line.