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What you’ll need

  • A Hivenet account with Compute credits ready
  • macOS 11 (Big Sur) or newer
  • Terminal (built in)
  • OpenSSH (installed by default)

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Step 1 – Create your SSH key pair

  1. Open Terminal.
  2. Run: 
    bashCopyEditssh-keygen -t ed25519
  3. Press Enter to accept the default location (/Users/<you>/.ssh/id_ed25519).
  4. When prompted, enter a passphrase (optional but recommended).
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:
FileWhat it is
id_ed25519Your private key — keep it secret
id_ed25519.pubYour public key — you’ll upload this to Hivenet

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Step 2 – Find your key files

Open the .ssh folder in Finder: 
bashCopyEditopen ~/.ssh
You’ll see the two files listed above.

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Step 3 – Add your public key to Hivenet

  1. Double-click id_ed25519.pub to open it in TextEdit.
  2. Copy the entire line (it starts with ssh-ed25519).
  3. In Compute with Hivenet, paste that line into the SSH key field when you create an instance.
Paste only the .pub file contents. Never share the private key.

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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 bastion@ssh.hivecompute.ai %h
Now you can connect with: 
bashCopyEditssh hivenet
—much quicker than pasting the full string each time.

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Troubleshooting

MessageLikely 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 failedYou re-created the VM and the host key changed. Remove the old entry from ~/.ssh/known_hosts and try again.
ssh: command not foundOpenSSH is missing (rare on macOS). Install Xcode Command Line Tools with xcode-select --install.
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