I Lost the SSH Key for My Vultr Compute Instance

1 min readUpdated 26 October 2026

Password login stays on even with an SSH key; use the root or linuxuser password from the Vultr Console.

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 Console.

To retrieve the root password or linuxuser password:

Log in to the Vultr Console.
Navigate to Compute under Products section and select your instance.
On the instance overview tab.
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.

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Regain Vultr Instance Access After Losing an SSH Private Key | Vultr Docs