Connecting to your account

Beyond the Aegir control panel in your browser, your account comes with its own shell — a login that lets you reach your files, run Drush, and use the self-service tools. It's a limited shell: it opens straight into your own account and can't see anyone else's files or the rest of the server. That's exactly what you want, and it's all you need.

You connect with the same tools you'd use for any host: SSH for a command line, and SFTP (or FTPS, if your host lists it) for uploading and downloading files. Your host gives you three things when your account is set up — your username (it looks like o1.ftp), the server's address, and a password — and from there you're in.

Everything on this page is something you do from your own machine and your own account. None of it needs root, and none of it touches the server itself.

Your login in one line

  • Username — o1.ftp (your number may be o2, o3, and so on — it's just your account). This .ftp login is the one where the self-service tools, Drush, and PHP-CLI switching all work correctly, so it's the login to use.
  • Server address and port — your host tells you the hostname (or IP) to connect to. SSH usually listens on the standard port, but your host may have moved it, so use the port they gave you.
  • Password — your host provides your first password. You can change it yourself once you're in, and you can add an SSH key so you don't have to type a password at all.

In this topic

  • Shell and SFTP access — everything about getting in. The exact commands to reach your shell over SSH and your files over SFTP (or FTPS), what to put in a point-and-click file-transfer app like FileZilla, how to set up an SSH key so you never type a password, and exactly what your limited shell can and can't do — Drush, mybackup, git, Composer, MySQL and more, plus why a few commands are switched off on purpose.
  • When you can't connect — a calm checklist for the two things that trip people up: a "host key has changed" warning after your host rebuilds the server, and a password that suddenly stops working when the automatic 90-day refresh runs. Both are fixable from your own computer in a couple of minutes.

Good to know before you start

  • Use o1.ftp, not o1. Your account technically has a plain o1 login too, but the self-service tools and version-switching only behave correctly under the o1.ftp limited shell. When in doubt, log in as o1.ftp.
  • Your files live under your account. Once you're in, your home is your own space — your sites, your backups in static/files/dbackup/, and your settings files are all there. The shell can't wander outside it.
  • A refused login is usually a small thing. Most connection problems are a mistyped port or username, or an SSH key that needs its permissions tightened — all fixable from your side. If it turns out the account itself needs attention on the server, that's one thing your host handles: open a support request and they'll take care of it.

New to your shell? Start with Shell and SFTP access — it walks you through your first login and setting up an SSH key so you never have to type a password again.