How does SSH work?

I worked with SSH more times on VPS or dedicated servers but to be honest I don't know how SSH works and how it helps me to connect to my server hosting? Does anyone give me any explanations?

Hello Maxoq, I will not be able to explain how SSH work, but I should be able to explain what is SSH.

SSH is a cryptographic network protocol. It was designed to replace telnet and other unsecure remote shell protocols and it's main utility is to secure remote connections between a client and a server over an unsecured network (the internet).
Then they are a lot of applications which use SSH to secure the connection between the client and the server. The first one is the remote shell login, which is often mingled with SSH itself. But also files transfer applications (rsync, SCP, SFTP) or even X forwarding applications like X2Go.

SSH, also known as Secure Shell, is a remote control protocol that allows users to control and edit servers remotely over the internet. The service was created to replace unencrypted Telnet and use cryptographic techniques to ensure that all communications sent to and sent from a remote server took place in an encrypted state. It provides algorithms to authenticate remote users, transfer input from client to host, and relay the results back to the client.

To understand what SSH is, you firstly need to know how it works. If you are using Linux or Mac, using SSH is very simple. If you use Windows, you just use SSH client to open SSH connection. The most popular SSH client is Putty or Bitvise Tunnelier, which you can see more details here.

For MAC and Linux users, open the terminal and follow these instructions:

The SSH command has three parts:
The SSH key command tells the system that you want to open a Secure Shell Connection connection. {user} represents the user account you want to access. For example, if you want to access root user, replace root here. User root is a system administrator user with full rights to edit anything on the system. {host} represents the computer you want to access. It could be an IP address (for example, 257.213.14.27) or a domain name (for example, www.example.com).

When you hit enter, it will ask you to enter the corresponding password for the account. As you type, you will not see any signs on the screen, but if you type the correct password and hit enter, you will be in the system and receive a successful login.

Hope it can provider a bit more info how SSH works.

SSH is also known as Secure Shell. It is a remote administration protocol that allows users to control and modify their remote server over the Internet. It provides a mechanism for authenticating a remote user, transferring inputs from the client to the host, and relaying the output back to the client

Maxoq said:

I worked with SSH more times on VPS or dedicated servers but to be honest I don't know how SSH works and how it helps me to connect to my server hosting? Does anyone give me any explanations?

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The replies are pretty much on point in terms of addressing what SSH is, but in terms of how it works -- I recognize that it's complex. I have to comprehend concepts visually and often using metaphors so this one is hard for me sometimes. I know that SSH and RDP (remote desktop protocol) are often simultaneously referenced because they both are about remotely accessing another server.

From what I have heard, using RDP is a bit easier, but I think it doesn't offer as much security or control.