Connecting to Your OT-2 With SSH

Introduction

SSH is a way to connect to and control your OT-2 over the command line. It is required for some troubleshooting and advanced tasks.

Before Starting

SSH requires some first-time setup. Before following these instructions, make sure you've completed the setup guide:

Setting Up SSH Access to Your OT-2

Once that's done, you're ready to connect.

1. Find Your OT-2's IP Address

In the Opentrons App, find the OT-2 that you want to connect to. Note the part of the Wired IP or Wireless IP that comes before the slash (/).

If you use the Wired IP, the SSH connection will be made over USB. If you use the Wireless IP, the SSH connection will be made over Wi-Fi. We recommend connecting over USB when possible, because the connection will be more reliable.

These IP addresses will change periodically, especially after the OT-2 is restarted or reconnected. You should double-check the IP address each time you want to make an SSH connection.

2. Connect

On Windows

Open a PowerShell window and enter the following command. Replace ROBOT_IP with the IP address you found above.

ssh -i ot2_ssh_key -o UserKnownHostsFile=NUL -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no root@ROBOT_IP

On Linux and macOS

Open a Terminal window and enter the following command. Replace ROBOT_IP with the IP address you found above.

ssh -i ot2_ssh_key -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no root@ROBOT_IP

Connection Warnings

You may see a short warning saying "Permanently added [IP address] to the list of known hosts." You can safely ignore it.

3. After Connecting

You can confirm that the connection was successful by trying to run some commands on your OT-2. For example, try entering:

whoami

The output of this command should be root .