SSH/SFTP accounts management¶

Managing SSH/SFTP accounts that are needed to access the server via SSH (terminal) or SFTP (graphical interface) is included in the Scalesta functionality. Here you can create a personal account for each of your developers - we don't recommend creating meta-users (such as “developers” or “supportteam”) through this functionality.

Usually, SSH/SFTP account is enough to do near all development on your site, so there is no need to grant sudo/root access to the developer. Sometimes it may be risky and unsecure. Sudo/root users can accidentally make changes on critical server systems, and it can be the cause of the website’s unavailability. So, we strongly recommend using SSH/SFTP access without sudo/root privileges for development needs. If you need to do some changes, that need such privileges, feel free to ask us to do it. We have an excellent technical team and be happy to do it for you.

Create a new SSH/SFTP account¶

1. Open the SSH/SFTP users menu in your server panel and click Create ssh/sftp user button.

2. Type in the Username and select the Period of the access (after this period access will be deactivated automatically) and click Create user and confirm your actions.

3. You will receive a personal ticket with access credentials in your Scalesta account.

If you need to add an SSH account with key authorisation, go to Extended settings and add your public SSH key in the special field.

Also, you can send access information to third-party email address. For example, if you need to send access to your server to developers. Just fill in the appropriate field.

Access restriction¶

In some cases, you may want to restrict user access and allow only a specific project or directory accessible.

In the extended settings you can add such kind of restrictions by clicking Add mount to project. Let's talk about these settings in more details.

Mount to project

Here you need to specify the project you want to provide access to.

Mount to subdirectory

Here you can specify the project directory you want to provide access to (in case access should be restricted by the directory). It is necessary to specify a relative path within the project. This field might be empty if you provide access for a whole project.

Mountpoint

You may determine how the folder will be called inside the user home directory. This field is not obligatory.

For example, you want to provide access to Images folder your example.com project:

Active SSH/SFTP accounts management¶

You can manage the created SSH/SFTP accounts via the SSH/SFTP users menu. You can reset the password for a certain user by clicking Actions → Reset password (the new password will be sent to you through a ticket). Also, you can prolong user, change restrictions or remove user.

SFTP access applications¶

Recommended applications to manage files on your server:

• Cyberduck (free) for macOS and Windows
• FileZilla (free) for Windows, Linux, and macOS
• WinSCP (free) for Windows
• Ubuntu Files (free) for Ubuntu