What you’ll need
A Hivenet account with Compute credits ready
macOS 11 (Big Sur) or newer
Terminal (built in)
OpenSSH (installed by default)
Step 1 – Create your SSH key pair
Open Terminal.
Run:
bashCopyEditssh-keygen -t ed25519
Press Enter to accept the default location (
/Users/<you>/.ssh/id_ed25519).When prompted, enter a passphrase (optional but recommended).
Tip: Already use a password manager? Many, including 1Password and Bitwarden, can create and store SSH keys in one click. If that’s your jam, generate the key there and copy the public part straight from the manager.
The command (or your manager) creates two files:
File | What it is |
| Your private key — keep it secret |
| Your public key — you’ll upload this to Hivenet |
Step 2 – Find your key files
Open the .ssh folder in Finder:
bashCopyEditopen ~/.ssh
You’ll see the two files listed above.
Step 3 – Add your public key to Hivenet
Double-click id_ed25519.pub to open it in TextEdit.
Copy the entire line (it starts with
ssh-ed25519).In Compute with Hivenet, paste that line into the SSH key field when you create an instance.
Important: Paste only the .pub file contents. Never share the private key.
Step 4 – (Optional) add a quick SSH config
In ~/.ssh, create or edit a file named config (no extension) and paste:
perlCopyEditHost hivenet HostName <your-instance-id>.ssh.hivecompute.ai User ubuntu IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 # Remove the next line if your instance shows no bastion host ProxyCommand ssh [email protected] %h
Now you can connect with:
bashCopyEditssh hivenet
—much quicker than pasting the full string each time.
Troubleshooting
Message | Likely cause & fix |
Permission denied (publickey) | The public key isn’t on the instance, or you’re using the wrong private key. Re-add the key or point SSH at the right file. |
Host key verification failed | You re-created the VM and the host key changed. Remove the old entry from |
ssh: command not found | OpenSSH is missing (rare on macOS). Install Xcode Command Line Tools with |
Still stuck? Jump into Discord or ping us in chat—we’ll get you sorted.