SSH Keys and Secrets

Generate a dedicated deploy key and add it to Hostinger and GitHub.

Generate a deploy key

Create a dedicated SSH key for deployments. Don’t reuse your personal key.

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "github-actions-deploy" -f ~/.ssh/your_app_deploy

This creates:

  • ~/.ssh/your_app_deploy — private key for GitHub Secrets
  • ~/.ssh/your_app_deploy.pub — public key for hPanel

Add the public key to hPanel

Copy the public key from your machine:

Get-Content "$env:USERPROFILE\.ssh\your_app_deploy.pub" | Set-Clipboard

Then paste it into SSH Access → Add SSH Key in hPanel.

Test the connection locally:

ssh -i ~/.ssh/your_app_deploy -p 65002 uXXXXXXXXX@your-server-ip

Add GitHub secrets

Go to GitHub → Repository → Settings → Environments → your environment → Secrets and add:

Secret Value
SSH_HOST Server IP
SSH_USER Hostinger username
SSH_PORT 65002
SSH_PRIVATE_KEY Contents of ~/.ssh/your_app_deploy
SSH_PASSPHRASE Key passphrase
FTP_SERVER Server IP or domain
FTP_USER FTP username
FTP_PASS FTP password
FTP_PORT 21
FTP_SERVER_DIR /home/uXXXXXXXXX/domains/yourapp.com/public_html

Important — SSH_PRIVATE_KEY must keep its newlines intact. Paste it from a text editor, not from a terminal.

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