This very quick guide will show you how to use SSH to connect from your Mac to a remote server.
The best part is you don’t need to install any additional software at all! Here goes –
- Open a Terminal by opening a Finder window and navigating to Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal. Once your Terminal has opened, type in the command:
ssh -l username domain.com
but replace username with the user name for your account, and replace domain.com with the name of the server that you’re going to SSH to.
- Now enter your password in the space provided. Note: you can ‘paste’ your password into a Terminal using the regular keyboard command of Apple Key + v if you’ve copied it from a ‘password manager’ App or your clipboard.
- You may be presented with a ‘Welcome’ message when you connect (as illustrated in the screenshot below, my host automatically displays the last IP address that connected to their server using my account). It’s also entirely possible that no message at all will be displayed, and you’ll be presented with nothing other than a prompt.
- You’re pretty much done now :) You’re connected, and can now issue commands.
- Here’s a list of some common commands you can (probably) use during an SSH session.
- Once you’ve finished your session and have logged off, you can simply Quit the Terminal. That’s it! If you were wondering why the Terminal in this guide looks different than yours, check out this overview on how to customize the Terminal.
- Related: if you want to use the Chrome web browser to SSH, you can do that too.