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How to Connect to a Vultr Bare Metal Instance using Putty

Updated on November 27, 2024

Putty is an SSH client for Windows workstations. It provides a unique management panel and terminal to connect to instances using SSH. Putty supports password-based authentication and SSH keys to connect to an instance.

Follow this guide to connect to a Vultr Bare Metal instance using Putty on Windows.

Connect to an Instance Using the Default User Credentials

  1. Open Putty from your applications menu.

  2. Enter your instance's public IP address in the Host Name (or IP address) field.

    Open the default Putty configuration

  3. Keep 22 as the Port value and SSH as the connection type.

  4. Click Open to connect to your instance using SSH.

    Start a new SSH session

  5. Click Accept when prompted to add the instance's public key to your workstation's known hosts.

    Accept the instance host key

  6. Enter your instance username as the login as value.

  7. Enter your user password when prompted and press Enter to log in.

  8. View the active user information in your SSH session.

    console 
    $ whoami

Connect to an Instance Using SSH Keys

  1. Enter your instance's public IP address in the Host Name (or IP address) field.

  2. Keep 22 as the Port and SSH as the connection type.

    Enter the instance SSH details in Putty

  3. Expand the SSH group on the main navigation menu to access additional connection options.

  4. Expand the Auth group and select Credentials from the list of options.

    Expand advanced SSH options

  5. Click Browse within the Private key file for authentication field to load your private key.

  6. Click Data within the Connection group and enter the default instance username in the Auto-login username field to use with your SSH key.

    Click Data in Putty

  7. Navigate to Session on the main navigation menu and enter a new session name in the Saved Sessions field.

    Access the Sessions Group

  8. Click Save to store your SSH key, user, and the instance IP configurations.

  9. Click Open to connect to the instance using the SSH key session information.

    (Open the SSH key session configuration)

  10. Click Accept when prompted to add the instance's public key to your workstation's known hosts.

    Accept the instance public key

  11. View the active user information in your SSH session.

    console 
    $ whoami