# SSH for beginners

**URL:** <https://forum.cursor.com/t/ssh-for-beginners/702>\
**Category:** Guides\
**Created:** [September 23, 2023, 12:56am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/ssh-for-beginners/702 "2023-09-23T00:56:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AlexEEE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9d8465/32.png) [@AlexEEE](https://forum.cursor.com/u/AlexEEE)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2023, 12:56am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/ssh-for-beginners/702/1 "2023-09-23T00:56:55Z")

</div>

If you’re here struggling to get SSH to work to an AWS instance (or anything else using a key file), keep reading. Basically, the OS handles it for you…that’s why there are no settings inside Cursor (or prob VS Code for that matter)

Find that key file (the private one) (probably .pem file) and execute in terminal:

```auto
ssh-add <key file name>

```

That’s it! When you start a new session in Cursor and choose “SSH”, make sure you put your user name into your address, like so (ubuntu in this case):  
[ubuntu@ec2-3-21-92-154.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com](mailto:ubuntu@ec2-3-21-92-154.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/system/32/99069_2.png) [@system](https://forum.cursor.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 10:10am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/ssh-for-beginners/702/2 "2026-06-18T10:10:45Z")

</div>