15/9/21 11:40 [OpenWrt Wiki] SSH access for newcomers

You are here /  /  Documentation /  Quick start guide for OpenWrt installation /  SSH access for newcomers

SSH access for newcomers

One of the methods to manage OpenWrt is using command-line interface over SSH
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSH_(Secure_Shell)).
OpenWrt listens for incoming SSH ()
connections on port 22/tcp by default.
To “ssh into your router”, you can enter the following
command in a terminal emulator using you router's LAN () IP () address that is typically
192.168.1.1 :

ssh [email protected]

The first time you ssh into your router, you will probably see a warning about the RSA key
fingerprint.
If you are certain this is the address of your OpenWrt device, simply type yes
and press Return.
Then enter the password you have given to your router, or press Return if
this is the initial setup.
Here is an example session:

$ ssh [email protected] <== You type

this

The authenticity of host '192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)' can't be established.

RSA key fingerprint is SHA256:4VbDA/MOc7inPiyllF5f0r3Q6iEx89ddKdhLGBovsiY.

Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes <== and this

Warning: Permanently added '192.168.1.1' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.

[email protected]'s password: <== and the p

assword here

BusyBox v1.28.4 () built-in shell (ash)

_______ ________ __

| |.-----.-----.-----.| | | |.----.| |_

| - || _ | -__| || | | || _|| _|

|_______|| __|_____|__|__||________||__| |____|

|__| W I R E L E S S F R E E D O M

-----------------------------------------------------

OpenWrt 18.06.2, r7676-cddd7b4c77

-----------------------------------------------------

root@OpenWrt:~# <== type next

command here

To end your ssh session to your router, type exit and press Return.

The remainder of this page describes several terminal emulators that Windows, Linux, or
macOS can use to access your OpenWrt device.

Windows terminal emulators

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-quick-start/sshadministration 1/6
15/9/21 11:40 [OpenWrt Wiki] SSH access for newcomers

Windows Terminal for Windows 10 or the legacy ConHost (both giving access to Windows
PowerShell, Windows Command Prompt, WSL Bash), PuTTY, MinGW (installed together
with Git), Cmder, SmarTTY, and WinSCP are terminal emulators that allow you to SSH () into
an OpenWrt router.

Windows 10 built-in terminals

Both Windows PowerShell and Command Prompt allows using the default Windows 10 SSH
() client.
That SSH () client is an optional windows feature and has to be enabled
(https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-
server/administration/openssh/openssh_install_firstuse).

If you have installed a WSL distribution, the SSH () client is usually preinstalled in there.

If you directly launch cmd.exe , powershell.exe or wsl.exe the legacy ConHost terminal
will open.
Otherwise, you can install the modern Windows Terminal
(https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9N0DX20HK701) from the store and select any
of these shells from there.

1. Open any of the above terminal emulators and write ssh [email protected] (“ssh” is
the command, “root” is the OpenWrt user you are connecting to, and “192.168.1.1” is
OpenWrt default IP ())
2. there will be a message about accepting a new key from the OpenWrt device, write
“yes” and press Enter key.
a. If for some reason you have reinstalled OpenWrt the device will have a different
key and you get an error about key mismatch. The error will state what is the
command line to copy-paste in your terminal to delete the old key and proceed.
Do it and retry.
3. if you want to close the session, write “exit”

The Windows 10 optional SSH () feature also includes SCP client (to
open/edit/download/upload files in OpenWrt via SSH ()).
Try google for some SCP tutorials
to learn how to use it.
Otherwise, use WinSCP which is way easier for SCP purposes.

PowerShell
Powershell (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/announcing-PowerShell-7-0/)
provides SSH () access.

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

The Windows Subsystem for Linux is a convenient way to run a Linux environment of your
choice including most,command-line tools, utilities, and applications directly on Windows.
For detailed steps of how to install WSL on Windows 10, refer to Microsoft's documentation:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/wsl/install-win10)

PuTTY

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-quick-start/sshadministration 2/6
15/9/21 11:40 [OpenWrt Wiki] SSH access for newcomers

PuTTY gives you command-line access to OpenWrt.

1. Download PuTTY (https://www.putty.org/), get the 32bit putty.exe from the

Alternative binary files section.
2. Start putty.exe on your Windows client → PuTTY's login window pops up.
3. go to the Session category of PuTTY's login window, look for the field Host Name (or
IP () address) and simply enter the IP ()-address (e.g. 192.168.1.1) of your
OpenWrt device, keep the default provided port 22.
4. Click the Open button at the Bottom to open a connection. This will pop up a shell
windows, asking to login as . Login as root with the OpenWrt password you have
defined some time before. If you have not yet set a password yet on “root”, you will not
be asked for the password.
5. Done, you are logged into the OpenWrt command line.

Setting up key-based authentication.

1. Generate a key pair using puttygen.exe . Save the private key to the PC and add the
public key to /etc/dropbear/authorized_keys on your OpenWrt device.
2. Connection → SSH () → Auth: In the box “Authentication Parameters” under “Private
key file for Authentication” state the path to your private key file for this connection
(e.g. the openwrt.ppk file you created before). Best is to click “Browse…” and select
the file via the file dialog.

Automating connections.

1. Connection → Data: In the box “Login details” enter the “Auto-login username” which
is root .
2. Load, save or delete a stored session, enter openwrt.lan in Saved Sessions and
click the Save button.
3. To make a PuTTY shortcut with an automatic login, create one and append the saved
session with an @ sign, for example call PuTTY with: putty.exe @openwrt.lan

WinSCP
WinSCP allows you to browse the OpenWrt file system in Windows Exlorer like GUI ()-style.

1. Download WinSCP (https://winscp.net/eng/download.php), get the non-beta

Installation package or portable executables and install or unzip them on your
Windows client
2. Start WinSCP.exe on your Windows client, WinSCP's login window will pop up
3. Click on New Site on the left, then enter your OpenWrt device IP () address
(192.168.1.1) on the right side into Host name , keep the default port 22 . In User
name enter root, in Password , enter your root password (or leave blank, if you have
not set a password yet)
4. Click the Login at the bottom of the Window.
5. Done. You now have an Exlorer-like view of your OpenWrt file system.

Editing OpenWrt config files with WinSCP's integrated GUI () editor.

1. To edit an OpenWrt config file with WinSCP's GUI ()-based editor, just right-click the
file in WinSCP and select Edit from the context menu.

Cmder
https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-quick-start/sshadministration 3/6
15/9/21 11:40 [OpenWrt Wiki] SSH access for newcomers

Cmder for Windows is an open-source terminal emulator that runs on Windows.

It is free to
use and provides an easy “command line shell” that allows you to ssh into OpenWrt.
Its
attractive fonts and color scheme are easy on the eyes.
The Full distribution is preferred
(over the mini distribution), since it provides a bash emulation, with a Unix-y suite of
commands.

1. Download Cmder (https://cmder.net/).

2. Unzip the cmder.zip file.
3. Open the Cmder folder, and double-click the Cmder icon. You'll see a Cmder window
open similar to the image below.
4. To ssh into the OpenWrt router at 192.168.1.1, type ssh [email protected] then
press Return.

SmarTTY
SmarTTY gives you command line access to OpenWrt and allows you to
open/edit/download/upload files in OpenWrt, and is overall more modern and user-friendly
than PuTTY (another tool detailed below).

1. Download SmarTTY (http://sysprogs.com/SmarTTY/), choose “download” for the

installer, or “portable version” if you want it as a standalone program that works
without installation.
2. after installation or after unzipping the archive, doubleclick on SmarTTY executable
file.
3. You will be greeted by a window with two choices, doubleclick on “setup a new SSH ()
connection” (the other option is for serial connections, for usb-TTL () dongles and
somesuch you connect to the device's debug serial pins on the board, we won't use
that now).
4. The window changes into the SSH () setup, write the following info:
a. Host name: OpenWrt device IP () address (default is 192.168.1.1 )
b. User Name: root (this is the “administrator” and only user in default OpenWrt)
c. Password: leave this blank for your first connection, then write the password
you set up (either in Luci GUI () or after your first SSH () access)
5. Click “Connect” button at the bottom, and you will now see a big terminal screen
coming up
6. A default OpenWrt firmware lacks the server component to allow you to
open/edit/view/upoad/download files in SmarTTY, so after you have connected to the
internet write opkg update && opkg install openssh-sftp-server to install it. If the
next step fails, it might be necessary to reboot the OpenWrt device for this new
service to start up properly.
7. Now you can click on File → Open a Remote File to open a popup that shows the file
system of the OpenWrt device, and you can navigate in it and open text files for
example as normal (they will open in a SmarTTY text editor window)
8. If you want to upload or download files to/from a specific folder in the device, you can
click on SCP menu and choose the most appropriate action from there.

After the first time you connected to a device, SmarTTY saved a profile, so you can connect
again to the same device (at that IP () address with that password) by just doubleclicking its
icon on the first window you see when starting SmarTTY.
You can right-click on this profile
icon to edit it again, if needed.

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-quick-start/sshadministration 4/6
15/9/21 11:40 [OpenWrt Wiki] SSH access for newcomers

Linux terminal emulators

All Linux distributions provide a command-line ssh client as part of the default installation.

1. Open a terminal emulator and write ssh [email protected] (“ssh” is the command,
“root” is the OpenWrt user you are connecting to, and “192.168.1.1” is OpenWrt
default IP ())
2. there will be a message about accepting a new key from the OpenWrt device, write
“yes” and press Enter key.
a. If for some reason you have reinstalled OpenWrt the device will have a different
key and you get an error about key mismatch. The error will state what is the
command line to copy-paste in your terminal to delete the old key and proceed.
3. if you want to close the session, write “exit”

Linux also usually has SCP/SFTP () clients (to open/edit/download/upload files in OpenWrt),
which may or may not be installed by default.
You need to look up your distro's
documentation or search with your package management interface for “scp” and “sftp” to find
where it is and its current installation status.
Read scp manual (http://man.cx/scp) for the
command line SCP client or google some tutorials to learn how to use it.

Midnight Commander
Midnight Commander (https://midnight-commander.org/) is Norton Commander like file
manager that works on Linux and macOS.
You can access remote files on OpenWrt via mc:

1. Press 'F9'
2. Select 'Left' panel config
3. Select 'Shell link'
4. Input '[email protected]/' and press OK
5. Now you'll see list of files and directories in root of OpenWrt

Internally it works over scp like protocol FISH

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Files_transferred_over_shell_protocol) so it not needs for
installed SFTP () server.

macOS terminal emulators

On macOS (formerly Mac OSX) any terminal emulator will allow you to ssh.

1. Terminal - The macOS built-in terminal program, find it in /Applications/Utilities.

2. iTerm2 (https://iterm2.com/) a much-enhanced terminal program, donation-ware - it's
worth it.

To ssh into your OpenWrt router at 192.168.1.1, type ssh [email protected] , then press
Return.

Chrome OS terminal emulator

On Chrome OS (), Secure Shell App (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-
shell-app/pnhechapfaindjhompbnflcldabbghjo?hl=en) will allow you to ssh.
https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-quick-start/sshadministration 5/6
15/9/21 11:40 [OpenWrt Wiki] SSH access for newcomers

Last modified: 2021/08/13 02:11 by richb-hanover

Self-registration in the wiki has been disabled.

If you want to contribute to the OpenWrt wiki, please post HERE (https://forum.openwrt.org/t/applying-for-
openwrt-wiki-account/101671) in the forum or ask on IRC () for access.

Except where otherwise noted, content on this wiki is licensed under the following license:

CC Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-quick-start/sshadministration 6/6