How to Connect to Amazon Lightsail using Putty (SSH)

In Amazon Lightsail’s dashboard, there is an easy link to Connect using SSH. Once you login to your Lightsail account, in the dashboard, click on the name of your WordPress instance. Once you’re in the main page of the instance, there is an easy Connect to SSH link present right there. Click on it, an a new window will open which gives you access to the terminal. This browser’s version of the terminal is fully functional.

However, some people might want to connect to their Amazon Lightsail’s instance using their own SSH client. Desktop clients like Putty can be used to access Lightsail quite easily. All you need is the SSH Key Pair containing your private key. A key file is used in this case.

Important: You should have the PuTTY client downloaded on your computer. Remember to download and install using the installation package as we require both PuTTY and Puttygen clients.

Step 1: Get the Private Key

Log into your Lightsail account.
On the top right, click on Account > Account.
Navigate to the SSH Keys tab.
Click the Download link which is next to the instance’s region.
(You can also upload or create new)
A LightsailDefaultKey-us-east-1.pem file will be downloaded.

Step 2: In PuTTYgen Generating an *.ppk File

Open the PuTTYgen client.
Go to File > Load private key.
In the Windows Browse dialog, switch from browsing just PuTTY Private Key Files (*.ppk) to All Files (*.*)
Open LightsailDefaultKey-us-east-1.pem file downloaded before.
Click on the Save private key button.
Click on Yes to Save it without the passphrase for convenience.
Give a file name and save it as a *.ppk file.