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I Lost the SSH Key for My Vultr Compute Instance

Updated on 15 September, 2025

How to regain access to a Vultr Compute instance when youve lost your SSH private key

By default, all Vultr instances support password authentication, even if you deploy the instance with an SSH key.

If you lose access to your SSH private key, you can still log in to your instance using the root or linuxuser user password, which is randomly generated and accessible from the Vultr Customer Portal.

To retrieve the root password or linuxuser password:

  1. Log in to the Vultr Customer Portal.
  2. Navigate to Compute under Products section and select your instance.
  3. On the instance overview tab.
  4. Click View Root Password.
Note
If you manually disabled password authentication in your SSH configuration and have lost your private key, you will not be able to log in via SSH. In such cases, use the Web Console from the portal to regain access and reconfigure your SSH settings.