Quite often, when connecting to a server via SSH, you'll be doing so with a public key.

Each DeployHQ project has its own unique key pair, and the public key will need to be added to the appropriate user's `authorized_keys` file on your server, so that we can log in as that user.

Firstly, you can access the project's public key from either the new server page when you're adding a new server, or, the **Configuration** page. You'll need to enable the option to use an SSH key for authentication so that the public key is displayed.

{screenshot: 483}

You can do this by logging into the server as the user, or assuming that user by typing `su -username-of-user` in your terminal when logged in as any other user.

Then, you can follow these steps:

```
cd ~/.ssh/
nano ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
```

If the folder doesn't already exist, simply type `mkdir ~/.ssh` before the cd command.

Paste DeployHQ’s public key, then press `Ctrl + X`, `y` then `Enter` to save.

You can also run the following commands to ensure that permissions of both the user's /.ssh directory and authorized_keys file are set correctly:

```
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
```