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SFTP and SSH

Reach an app or site from your own computer with FileZilla, a terminal or VS Code and your SSH key. Plus password logins for a designer, in one folder.

Updated 22 Oct 20264 min read

Every app and site can be reached from your own computer: FileZilla, WinSCP or Cyberduck for its files, a terminal for commands, and VS Code's Remote SSH to edit it as if it were on your laptop. You log in with your own SSH key, never a password. For a designer who only needs a site's uploads folder, a site can also have SFTP logins with a password and one folder.

Before you start

  • You're the account's Owner or a Developer with the project. Viewers and Billing people don't connect.

  • You have an SSH key on your computer. Most computers make one with one command:

Terminal
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "asha@laptop"

Press Enter at each question to keep the defaults. It makes two files: ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, the private key that never leaves your computer, and ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub, the public key you give Tanzahost.

Add your SSH key

  1. Open your settings, then Security.

  2. Under SSH keys, choose Add an SSH key.

  3. Paste the one line from your .pub file, like ssh-ed25519 AAAA… asha@laptop. Never the private key.

  4. Give it a Name, like Work laptop, and choose Add key.

Ed25519, ECDSA and security keys work, and RSA keys of 3,072 bits or more. You can add up to 20 keys. A key belongs to one person, and it reaches every app you may manage, so you add it once, not per app.

Find your connection details

Open the app's or site's page and find the SFTP and SSH card. It shows:

FieldExampleWhat it is
Serverdoor-uk-01.tanzahost.coThe door for the project's location
Port2222Always 2222
Usernameapp-7h3k2q8mThe app's own name for connecting. It never changes, even when you rename the app
Server keySHA256:…The fingerprint your program shows the first time. Check that it matches

The card also has the exact commands to copy.

Connect from a terminal

Terminal
ssh -p 2222 app-7h3k2q8m@door-uk-01.tanzahost.co

The first time, your terminal shows the server key's fingerprint and asks whether to trust it. Compare it with Server key on the card, then type yes.

You land inside the running app, as its own user, with its files and variables: the same place as the terminal in the browser. Run one command without staying, like ssh -p 2222 app-7h3k2q8m@door-uk-01.tanzahost.co php artisan migrate:status.

An app that isn't running offers SFTP only.

Connect with VS Code

  1. Install the Remote - SSH extension.

  2. Open the command palette and choose Remote-SSH: Connect to Host.

  3. Paste ssh -p 2222 app-7h3k2q8m@door-uk-01.tanzahost.co.

VS Code opens the app's files and a terminal inside it. Ports it forwards reach only the app itself, so you can open the app's own address on your laptop while you work.

Connect with FileZilla

  1. Open File, then Site Manager, and choose New site.

  2. Protocol: SFTP. Host: the card's server. Port: 2222.

  3. Logon type: Key file, with your Username from the card, and choose your private key file (id_ed25519).

  4. Choose Connect, and check the server key the first time.

A site opens in its files. An app opens in the folders it keeps, the ones that stay between deploys, like storage: the rest of an app comes from its code, so change that in your code and deploy.

SFTP logins for a designer

A site, like a WordPress site, can have up to 20 SFTP logins: a password and one folder, files only, no commands. This is how cPanel's FTP accounts worked.

  1. On the site's SFTP and SSH card, choose Add an SFTP login.

  2. Give it a Name, like designer. Its username becomes the site's username with the name after a dot: app-7h3k2q8m.designer.

  3. Choose a Folder inside the site, like wp-content/uploads, or leave it empty for all of the site.

  4. Choose Add login. Tanzahost makes a long password and shows it once: copy it and send it with the server, the port and the username.

Each login has New password, Change folder and Remove. Each change ends the login's open sessions at once. After 10 wrong passwords in a row, a login is locked for 15 minutes.

Sessions

The card's Recent sessions list shows every connection of the last 90 days: who made it (a person or a login), from where, with which program, how much it carried and why it ended. An open session has End, which stops it at once.

A session ends after 12 hours at the latest. Removing a key, changing a login, taking someone's access away or a suspended account ends the sessions they no longer allow, at once.

What it can't do

There's no plain FTP: it sends passwords unprotected, so every program uses SFTP instead. There's no SCP's old protocol, no agent forwarding and no ports forwarded anywhere but the app itself. An API token can't make SFTP logins or add SSH keys.

Next

Prefer the browser? The file manager and the terminal do the same without a key.

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