Connect to an Instance

How to connect to your Instance

Reviewed on 12 June 2023 • Published on 26 May 2021

This page shows how to connect to your Scaleway Instance via SSH. Thanks to the SSH key that you created and uploaded, you can use a terminal application on your local computer to remotely connect to your Instance as root. This enables you to use your Instance as you wish.

Security & Identity (IAM):

You may need certain IAM permissions to carry out some actions described on this page. This means:

you are the Owner of the Scaleway Organization in which the actions will be carried out, or
you are an IAM user of the Organization, with a policy granting you the necessary permission sets

Requirements:

You have an account and are logged into the Scaleway console
You have created your SSH key and added it to your account
You have created an Instance

How to connect from OSX (Mac) and Linux

Open a terminal program.
Enter the command below into the terminal. Make sure you replace your_private_key with the filename of your private key (often id_ed25519) and your_instance_ip with the IP address of your Instance.
```
ssh -i ~/.ssh/your_private_key root@your_instance_ip
```
Tip:
To find the IP address of your Instance, log into the Scaleway console and click Instances in the Compute section of the side menu. A list of your Instances and their associated IP addresses will display.

If / when prompted, allow connection to the host by typing yes, then press Enter.

The authenticity of host 'myhost.ext (212.47.226.35)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 4f:ba:65:cf:14:64:a7:1e:b6:07:7c:00:71:95:21:fa.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

You are now connected to your Instance.

How to connect from Windows

To connect to your Instance from Windows, you will need to use a small application called PuTTY, an SSH client.

Download and install PuTTY.
Launch PuTTY on your computer. The main screen of the application displays:
Enter your Instance’s IP address in the Hostname field.

Tip:
To find the IP address of your Instance, log into the Scaleway console and click Instances in the Compute section of the side menu. A list of your Instances and their associated IP addresses will display.
In the side menu, under Connection navigate to the Auth sub-category. Do this by expanding Connection, then SSH and finally clicking on Auth:
Click the Browse button and select the private key file you generated previously.
Click Open at the bottom of the screen to open a connection to the Instance. Upon the first connection, PuTTY asks you to allow the connection to the host.
Click OK to confirm.

The terminal window displays.
Enter the username root and press Enter to authenticate against the server with your SSH key.

You are now connected to your Instance.

Troubleshooting connection problems

If you have any problems connecting to your Instance via SSH, refer to our dedicated troubleshooting document.