Connecting To the Console Shell

Our console shell allows you back-door access to your hosting at Bytemark.

The shell itself works in the same way regardless of whether you have a dedicated or virtual machine, we use different methods to authenticate you.

On Windows, you will need the PuTTY program to connect. We have written a guide on how to use Putty to access the shell – these instructions assume you are running Linux, or Mac OS (using the Terminal application).

Virtual Machines

Assuming your machine is called “joebloggs”, you should connect to:

  joebloggs@joebloggs.vmadmin.bytemark.co.uk

i.e. the username is ‘joebloggs’ and the hostname should be ‘joebloggs.vmadmin.bytemark.co.uk’.
From a Linux or Mac OS machine you would type:

  ssh joebloggs@joebloggs.vmadmin.bytemark.co.uk

The password for the console shell will be the same as the root password we
originally set for your VM. If you can’t remember this it will be in an email that we sent when you signed up.

If you’ve forgotten your pasword you can ask us to reset it for you.

Dedicated Servers

Dedicated servers use a key file rather than a password. Assuming your
machine is called “joebloggs”, you should connect to:

  dhshell@joebloggs.dhadmin.bytemark.co.uk

i.e. the username is ‘dhshell’ and the hostname should be ‘joebloggs.dhadmin.bytemark.co.uk’.

The key file is distributed to you initially by being copied into the /root
directory of your host. So assuming you have copied this off and it is still
called “joebloggs.dh.key”, you would connect from a Linux or Mac OS
machine with this command:

  ssh -i joebloggs.dh.key dhshell@joebloggs.dhadmin.bytemark.co.uk

Note that OpenSSH (the most common SSH program on Linux or Mac OS) insists that the permissions on the file are 0700. If your key has different permissions you will receive a prompt for a passphrase, even if one has not been set. You can fix this by typing:

  chmod 0700 joebloggs.dh.key

If you have lost your SSH key you can ask support to have it re-sent.