How to Connect to your Droplet with PuTTY on Windows

DigitalOcean Droplets are Linux-based virtual machines (VMs) that run on top of virtualized hardware. Each Droplet you create is a new server you can use, either standalone or as part of a larger, cloud-based infrastructure.

PuTTY is an open-source SSH and Telnet client for Windows. It allows you to securely connect to remote servers from a local Windows computer.

If you don’t have PuTTY installed, visit the PuTTY website and choose the Windows installer from the Package files list. Once PuTTY is installed, start the program.

We recommend following the official PuTTY documentation on getting started:

Getting Started with PuTTY

Official PuTTY documentation on how to start a session, verify the host key, log in, and log out of remote servers.

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PuTTY’s documentation covers how to start a session. To avoid entering the same configuration options each time you connect, you can save your session settings:

1. In the host name section, enter the Droplet’s IP address, which you can find in the control panel and set the port to 22. Set the connection type to SSH.

2. Set the SSH protocol to 2.

3. If you’re using SSH keys, add the private key file.

4. If you don’t want to enter a username every time you connect, add an auto-login username.

5. Finally, save the session.

You can use this saved session to connect in the future.