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Deploy in minutes

Connect your VPS, point sshship at your Git repo or upload a .zip, and deploy with one click — or automatically on every push.

01

Quick start

sshship is a hosted platform — you don’t install our app on your VPS. Sign up, add your server keys, and deploy. The product (dashboard, API, queue, billing) runs with us; your apps run on the servers you connect.

  1. 1

    Create an account

    Sign up for an account. The Free plan gives you 1 server and 3 projects — no credit card required.

  2. 2

    Add your VPS

    Go to Servers → Add server. Paste your SSH private key (PEM format). sshship encrypts it immediately and never logs it. Use Test SSH to verify connectivity.

  3. 3

    Create a project

    Go to Projects → Create project. Choose a server, deploy path (e.g. /var/www/my-app), and deployment type (Git or .zip upload).

  4. 4

    Set build commands

    Add the shell commands that prepare your app — npm install, composer install, etc. Each command runs in order under set -euo pipefail.

  5. 5

    Deploy

    Click Deploy now from the project page. Watch the live log stream as sshship clones your repo, runs your commands, and restarts your process.

02

SSH key setup

sshship is the main platform you log into; your VPS is where the app runs. We connect using SSH key authentication only — no passwords. You use a key pair where the private key is saved in your sshship account and the public key is in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on your VPS.

What happens to my SSH keys?

They are stored encrypted at rest in sshship (per-account, isolated from other customers). They are decrypted only inside our systems when you trigger a deploy, test SSH, terminal, metrics, or similar — then passed to our execution layer over a private channel to open an outbound SSH session to your server’s IP. They are not exposed in deploy logs, not reusable by other accounts, and you can rotate or delete them anytime from the dashboard. This is the same trust model as any hosted CI/CD or server panel: the platform holds secrets so it can act on your infrastructure when you ask it to.

Generate a new key pair (recommended)

# Run this on your local machine

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "sshship-deploy" -f ~/.ssh/sshship_deploy

 

# Copy the public key to your VPS

ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/sshship_deploy.pub user@your-vps-ip

 

# Print the private key to paste into sshship

cat ~/.ssh/sshship_deploy

Key requirements:

  • PEM format (starts with -----BEGIN ... PRIVATE KEY-----)
  • No passphrase — sshship cannot decrypt passphrase-protected keys
  • RSA, Ed25519, and ECDSA are all supported

Using an existing key

If you already have a key on your server (e.g. the one you use to SSH in yourself), you can paste the same private key. Just make sure its public counterpart is in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys for the user sshship will connect as.

03

Servers

A "server" is any Linux VPS you want to deploy to — Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Contabo, or your own hardware. sshship connects via SSH to run your deployment pipeline.

Host

IP address or hostname of the VPS.

Port

SSH port — defaults to 22.

SSH user

The remote user (e.g. deploy, ubuntu, root). Use a dedicated deploy user for best security.

SSH private key

Paste the full PEM-encoded private key. Encrypted with AES-256 on save. Never logged or exposed.

Label

A friendly name — shown in the dashboard. E.g. "Production EU", "Staging".

Tip: Always use Test SSH connection after saving a server. If it fails, check that the public key is in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and the port is open.
04

Projects

A project links a code source (Git repo or .zip) to a target server, a deploy path, and a build pipeline.

Name

A human-readable identifier.

Server

Which VPS to deploy to.

Deploy path

Absolute path on the VPS where code is placed — e.g. /var/www/my-app or /opt/apps/api.

Type

git or upload. Determines where code comes from.

Build commands

Shell commands run after code is prepared. See the Build commands section.

NGINX

Optional: let sshship write an NGINX vhost config and optionally obtain an SSL certificate via Certbot.

Process restart

Optional: a command to restart your app after deploy — e.g. systemctl restart my-app or pm2 restart all.

05

Git deployments

Choose deployment type: git, provide a repository URL and branch. The first deploy clones the repo; subsequent deploys run git pull.

Repository URL format

# SSH (recommended for private repos)

git@github.com:your-org/your-repo.git

 

# HTTPS (works for public repos)

https://github.com/your-org/your-repo.git

Private repos — SSH deploy key

For private repositories, generate a separate key pair for the deploy key:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "sshship-repo-deploy" -f ~/.ssh/repo_deploy -N ""

Paste the private key (~/.ssh/repo_deploy) into the SSH deploy key field in sshship.
Add the public key (~/.ssh/repo_deploy.pub) as a read-only Deploy Key on GitHub or GitLab. The key is encrypted at rest and injected only at deploy time — never logged.

06

.zip deployments

Choose deployment type: upload. From the project page, upload a .zip of your built artefact. Useful for compiled binaries, pre-built frontends, or any workflow where you build locally or in CI.

  1. 1

    Upload

    Drop or select your .zip from the project page. Max 100 MB.

  2. 2

    Secure store

    The archive is stored privately — not publicly accessible.

  3. 3

    Deploy

    Click Deploy now. sshship transfers the archive to your VPS and extracts it into the deploy path.

  4. 4

    Build

    Your build commands run as normal after extraction.

07

Build commands

Each command runs in order inside your deploy path. One command per line. A non-zero exit code stops the pipeline and marks the deployment as failed.

Laravel / PHP

composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader php artisan migrate --force php artisan config:cache php artisan route:cache php artisan view:cache

Node.js / Next.js

npm ci npm run build

Static HTML / plain site

# No build needed — files are served as-is echo "Deployed!"

Python / Django

pip install -r requirements.txt python manage.py migrate --noinput python manage.py collectstatic --noinput

Docker Compose (Starter+)

docker compose pull docker compose up --build -d docker compose exec app php artisan migrate --force
Working directory: Commands run with your deploy path as the working directory. You do not need to cd into it.
08

Webhooks

Git projects automatically get a webhook URL. Add it to GitHub or GitLab so every push to your branch triggers a deploy automatically — no manual action needed.

Payload URL Shown on your project page. Looks like: https://your-domain.com/api/v1/webhooks/github/{project-id}
Content type application/json
Secret Shown once at project creation — copy it immediately. Used to verify HMAC-SHA256 signatures from GitHub/GitLab.
Events Just the Push event is needed.
GitLab webhooks are available on the Starter plan and above. GitHub webhooks are included on all plans.
09

Environments Pro

Environments let you maintain separate configurations for the same project — for example staging (deploy on every push) and production (deploy manually or on a release tag).

Branch

Each environment can track a different branch — e.g. main → production, develop → staging.

Server

Each environment deploys to a different server — or the same one at a different path.

Env variables

Each environment gets its own variables; on deploy we write them into your application’s environment file on the server before build commands run (many PHP frameworks use a .env file there — not sshship’s settings).

Deploy path

Different path per environment — e.g. /var/www/my-app-staging vs /var/www/my-app.

10

REST API

All dashboard operations are available via REST API at https://your-domain.com/api/v1/*. Create an API token from Settings → API Tokens and pass it as a Bearer token. API tokens are available on the Starter plan and above.

# Trigger a deployment from CI

curl -X POST https://your-domain.com/api/v1/projects/{project-id}/deployments \

-H "Authorization: Bearer sp_your_token_here" \

-H "Content-Type: application/json"

Endpoint Description
GET /api/v1/servers List your servers
POST /api/v1/servers Add a server
POST /api/v1/servers/{id}/test-ssh Test SSH connectivity
GET /api/v1/projects List projects
POST /api/v1/projects Create a project
PUT /api/v1/projects/{id} Update a project
DELETE /api/v1/projects/{id} Delete a project
POST /api/v1/projects/{id}/deployments Trigger a deployment
GET /api/v1/projects/{id}/deployments List deployments
GET /api/v1/projects/{id}/deployments/{deployId} Get deployment + logs
POST /api/v1/webhooks/github/{id} GitHub push webhook
11

Plan limits

All plans include Git and .zip deployments, NGINX, SSL, and environment variables. Higher plans unlock more servers and advanced features.

Feature Free Starter Pro Business
Servers 1 5 ∞ ∞
Projects 3 ∞ ∞ ∞
Deployments / month 50 ∞ ∞ ∞
Docker Compose
Server metrics & alerts
Web SSH terminal
Remote file browser
Deployment rollback
API tokens
GitLab webhooks
Cron job manager
Teams & roles
Multi-server deploy
NGINX load balancing
Environments
Database backups
Audit log
Audit log export

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