As you already know, my wife is using an old computer running Ubuntu for her web development server. I can’t see the point in having a monitor plugged into it when all she ever needs to do is either a) alter the DocumentRoot when she works on a different site or b) wants to shut it down (rarely).

Here’s how we can do all this remotely from our Windows desktop.

Installing SSH on Ubuntu desktop

sudo apt-get install ssh

That was so easy it barely needed its own heading. SSH stands for Secure SHell and allows us to make a secure direct connection with our server. To do this we need to use an SSH client.

Connecting to our server using PuTTy

PuTTY is a free and simple ssh client for Windows. Simply download the latest version here and then run it.

Type in your Ubuntu server’s IP address where it says ‘Host Name (or IP address)’ and then hit the ‘Open’ button. From here you simply login with your Linux username and password. Now you are sitting at your Windows desktop machine but using your Ubuntu Server’s command line as if you were right there on your server.

TIP: if you want to remotely shutdown your server you type in:-

sudo /etc/sbin/shutdown -h now