How do I upload a public key to my new Linode?

When connecting with an SSH client, you'll be prompted for the credentials to login to your Linode. By default, the only username on a Linux system is root, and the password is the one you created when you deployed the Linode. We don't have access to that information, but if you wrote it down somewhere safe, you can get the password from there. If you're not able to connect via SSH, you can use our out-of-band Lish Console instead, but you'll still be prompted for the username and password for your Linode.

If you know your root password, you can login and reset it with the passwd command. If you don't know the password, you can reset it by following the instructions in our guide. It's worth noting that you have to power off your Linode when following those instructions. The password is then reset when the Linode is booted back up.

Once you've logged in, you can follow the instructions in this guide to setup Public Key authentication.