How to Connect to a Vultr Cloud Compute Instance Using Putty

Putty is an open source terminal emulator 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 Cloud Compute 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.

   

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

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

   

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

   

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 Copy

   $ 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.

   

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

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

   

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

   

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.

   

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

    

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

    console Copy

    $ whoami