If you are going to use a Windows computer to access your VPS, you are probably going to use PuTTY because it’s the most popular SSH client for Windows.

  1. Download and install PuTTY (Download PuTTY).
  2. Check if your private key (if you are using one to connect to your server) is a PEM or PPK file. If it’s a PPK file, skip to step 7, if it is a PEM file, you need to convert to PPK, because PuTTY only accepts PPK files. To do so, open PuTTYgen (it was installed with PuTTY). PuTTYgen location
  3. Click on “Load”. PuTTYgen window
  4. Click on “PuTTY Private Key Files” at the bottom-right corner and select “All Files”. PuTTYgen window
  5. Select the Private Key and click OK.
  6. Click on “Save private key”. You can set up a password for the key if you want.
  7. Open PuTTY. PuTTY window
  8. Type the public IP or the public DNS on the “Host Name” input box.
  9. On the left menu, click on Connection > SSH > Auth.
  10. Select your PPK file by clicking on “Browse”. PuTTY private key window
  11. Click on Connection > Data and type VPS username on “Auto-login username”. PuTTY auth window
  12. Go back to “Session” on the left menu and type a name for the connection inside “Saved sessions” input box.
  13. Click “Save”.
  14. Click “Open” to connect to your server.

If you have any suggestion, feel free to contact me via social media or email.