If you’re using Rancher, or FreeBSD, the username is core, rancher, or freebsd instead of root, respectively. For the initial setup, this should be the root user, which is the administrative user of your server. Next, in the Connection subheading in the Data configuration section, enter your server’s username in the Auto-login username field. Search for the private key file, which ends in. In the Private key file for authentication section, click the Browse button. If you previously created an SSH key pair, uploaded the public key to your account, and specified the key when you created the Droplet, open the Auth subcategory. If you will use a username and password to connect to your Droplet, skip this step. Make sure 2 is selected for SSH protocol version. Next, click on SSH in the left sidebar (under Connection). Confirm that the Port is set to 22 and that the Connection type SSH is selected.

On the PuTTY Configuration screen, fill in the field labeled Host Name (or IP Address) with your Droplet’s IP address, which you can find in the control panel.

Add the Droplet IP and Connection Details The following steps guide you through configuring a profile to connect to your Droplet. Once PuTTY is installed, start the program. If you don’t have PuTTY installed, visit the PuTTY website and choose the Windows installer from the Package files list. It allows you to securely connect to remote servers from a local Windows computer. PuTTY is an open-source SSH and Telnet client for Windows. Each Droplet you create is a new server you can use, either standalone or as part of a larger, cloud-based infrastructure.

DigitalOcean Droplets are Linux-based virtual machines (VMs) that run on top of virtualized hardware.

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