Connecting to a Device

Two ways in. The browser needs nothing installed; a native client works with no plugin.

From the browser

Open the device in the console and click the terminal button.

The web terminal runs over a WebSocket to the server and out through the agent’s existing connection. Nothing is installed and nothing is configured.

The browser generates its own key the first time and holds it non-extractably — it cannot be exported, works only in that browser, and disappears with the browser’s site data. That key becomes an SSH identity like any other, so a session opened this way is attributed to you the same as one from your laptop. See SSH Identities.

From your own SSH client

Use the device’s SSHID as the username:

$ ssh <username>@<namespace>.<device>@<server>

For example:

$ ssh [email protected]@cloud.shellhub.io

The device details page shows the whole string with a copy button.

Because the SSHID is just an SSH username, everything that speaks SSH works: OpenSSH, PuTTY, scp, sftp, Ansible. See SSH Client Configuration for making it less tedious to type.

The first connection from a native client

The first time you offer a key ShellHub has not seen, the login does not fail — it parks, and asks a member to approve it in the console. Approving binds that key to your account.

Every connection after that goes straight through. No approval, no wrapper, no special client.

See Login Approvals.

Authentication

Which unix user you connect as is the username part of the SSHID, and whether you may is decided by access policies — not by anything on the device. A policy can grant deploy and not root on the same machine.

The device still has to accept the credential for that unix user, exactly as it would for a direct SSH connection. ShellHub decides whether the connection is allowed; the device decides whether the login succeeds.

What else you can do over the same connection

• File Transfer — scp and sftp
• Port Forwarding — reach a service on the device or its network
• Web Endpoints — publish an HTTP service at a URL

Where to go next

• SSH Client Configuration — Aliases and config entries.
• Connection Denied — When it is refused.