SSH and SSL – A Beginner’s Guide

WordPress has done a great job of making it possible for the average person to create and run a decent looking website that works. Of course, a lot of it has to do with the availability of things like professional-grade premium themes and various plugins to help run the website.

Still, there are tons of things a novice website owner or administrator needs to learn. While things like lists of SEO-related terms are undoubtedly important, things that have to take care of security often take priority. Therefore, learning the difference between SSH and SSL – even if only for a beginner – is better done right away.

Here you are and here is what you will learn:

What is SSL?

We’ll start the guide with the somewhat more familiar term SSL. If you’ve ever been online and noticed a web address that starts with “HTTPS” instead of “HTTP”, you’ve probably seen SSL working. The “S” at the end of “HTTPS” means that the website uses an extra layer of security to protect communication between you – your browser, most likely because you accessed the website that way.

SSL is short for Secure Sockets Layerand it is the technology used to deliver all the important “s”s to the web address, indicating that communication with that website will be encrypted and safe from the prying eyes of various malicious parties.

While you will often hear about the importance of SSL and getting SSL certificates, if you dig a little deeper you will find that you are using TLS or Transport Layer Security instead of SSL. TLS is the newer version of the protocol and although it has been in use for a while, people have become so used to SSL that it has remained so. At best, you mention SSL/TLS.

The key here is that SSL is something you would use to ensure secure communication over a network – to protect the data in transit.

What is SSH?

SSH stands for Secure Shell, which is a type of protocol used to remotely connect to and control a server. It has nothing to do with the web address – SSH won’t kick in during casual web browsing. This is the type of security protocol that affects people connecting remotely to servers for the sole purpose of executing commands and transferring files.and this is something website administrators tend to do.

Here is an example that illustrates this best. When you access your website using an FTP client – ​​something you only do if you’re managing the website, not just browsing – your FTP client may give you the option to use FTP or SFTP. Both are protocols – FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. The “S” in “SFTP” stands for “secure” and achieves this security using Secure Socket Shell or Secure Shell or SSH. So this is where you can encounter SSH in the wild.

The key takeaway here is that SSH is something you use to provide a secure communication environment between you and the server in case you need to issue commands or transfer data.

SSH vs SSL – Is There a Real Comparison?

First of all, let’s admit that SSH and SSL are some things between the two that make it easy to mix or combine them. Not just because they share two of the three letters of their acronym. Both are security features that have to do with communicating with a website. These are “which is better – SSH or SSL?” and that could be a problem because you can’t compare SSH and SSL that way.

Sure, both are important security features, but The use cases are completely different. You will use SSH to secure the connection to a server so you can do the behind-the-scenes necessary for a website to work. However, you will use SSL whenever you decide to access the front end of your website. and see it the way regular users see it, with a layer of security.

There are many different consequences of using both. SSH is all about security – keeps the target as narrow as possible and greatly improves the security and integrity of files on your server. SSL protects things like passwords and credit card numbers from snooping while also increasing your website’s trust, contributing to SEOit can also assist with legal compliance.

Where Does This Leave You as a Webmaster?

If you’re a webmaster, the person responsible for running and maintaining a website, you shouldn’t be asking if SSH is better than SSL. You should ask how you can get both. Having an SSL certificate is quickly becoming a much easier and more useful standard than complying. – even if you don’t want users to leave any information on your website.

The good news is that getting an SSL certificate doesn’t have to cost you a single penny. You can add a free SSL certificate to your WordPress website as easily or at least as easily as your hosting provider wants to do. So, before you decide to do anything on your own, you should check with your hosting provider if they already offer a free SSL certificate and what is the procedure to install it.

It’s a slightly different story with SSH. SSH allows you to make changes to a server, and that doesn’t work for every hosting provider. They might as well be right – letting an unqualified administrator play around with the types of commands you would receive with SSH could easily lead to website crashes, support requests, and resources wasted fixing an easily avoidable bug.

If you have a shared hosting plan, your provider will either not have SSH or will have a limited version with not the best features. You can try activating one on your own, but you should always make sure you know what you’re doing and won’t violate your server’s terms of service.

Let’s wrap it up!

When you’re in charge of a WordPress website, it’s your job to make sure it has all the relevant safety and security features to protect the website and you as the owner, and the people who visit and use it. SSH and SSL are two different technologies that you can use simultaneously to increase the security of your website. So remember – with SSH and SSL the question is not “either-or” but “how to get both?”