{"id":62,"date":"2026-01-27T15:02:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T15:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farbyte.uk\/new-blog\/?p=62"},"modified":"2026-01-27T15:02:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T15:02:30","slug":"ubuntu-enable-secure-ssh-server","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farbyte.uk\/blog\/ubuntu-enable-secure-ssh-server\/","title":{"rendered":"Ubuntu – Enable & Secure SSH Server"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So, you’ve got a new cloud Ubuntu VPS<\/a> & need to access it remotely?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that at Farbyte, SSH is enabled on our template-based\u00a0cloud VPS<\/a>\u00a0by default!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you install Ubuntu from ISO, instead of using a Ubuntu template on our Cloud KVM service, you can choose to also add an SSH server during the OS installation process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This tutorial will show you how to enable OpenSSH on any Ubuntu 18.04 & 20.04 installation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both of these are Long Term Support (LTS) versions of Ubuntu & are thus great for running as servers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the administrative commands in this article assume you’re logged into the Ubuntu server as a user with sudo<\/strong> access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Do I Need SSH On My Ubuntu Server?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you’re not familiar with SSH, it stands for Secure Shell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It allows you to make a remote connection to your Ubuntu server, or any other Linux server for that matter, via a very secure & encrypted connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most Linux-based servers, like Ubuntu Server, don’t usually run a graphical user interface (GUI) like Windows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this reason, all administration is done via the command line, which is a bit like Microsoft DOS but much more powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check If SSH Is Already Running<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It’s not unusual to already have SSH running on a Linux server, as it’s by far the most popular way of connecting to a remote server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can quickly check if your Ubuntu server is already running SSH by running the following command in a console or terminal window:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ps aux | grep ssh<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
If SSH is already running on your server, you’ll usually see a few lines of output similar with one of them similar to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
root       744  0.0  0.5  69956  5456 ?        Ss   Mar06   0:00 \/usr\/sbin\/sshd -D<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The above line shows that the SSH daemon (server service) is running on the server already from \/usr\/sbin\/sshd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another way to quickly check if SSH is already running is to run the following command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
netstat -napt | grep ssh<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Again, the above command may give you multiple lines of output, but the important line will look similar to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:22           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      744\/sshd<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The above line tells us that the SSH daemon is running in a listening state on port 22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Port 22 is the standard SSH listening port & for security reasons should be changed for any Ubuntu server that is connected to the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Install SSH Server<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
So, if you check for SSH using the above command & find that it’s not running the next step is to either login to the Ubuntu console, or open a terminal if you’re using a windows environment on your Ubuntu server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OpenSSH<\/a> is by far the most popular SSH server available for Linux & is completely free for personal or commercial use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can install it with the following command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sudo apt install -y openssh-server<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
This will install the SSH service on your Ubuntu server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To make sure the SSH service is configured to start during system boot run the following command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sudo systemctl enable sshd.service<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
To make sure the SSH service is running now, use the following command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sudo systemctl start sshd.service<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
To check the current status of the SSH service run:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sudo systemctl start sshd.service<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Basic Ubuntu SSH Configuration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
We find nano<\/strong> to be the easiest editor for working with Linux config files in the console.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To make sure you’ve got nano installed, run the following command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sudo apt install -y nano<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
All the SSH service configurations can be changed by editing the \/etc\/ssh\/sshd_config<\/strong> file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can open this for editing with nano as such:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sudo nano \/etc\/ssh\/sshd_config<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Some common settings that Ubuntu administrators usually change are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n