Every rental already has a terminal in the browser. When you want your own tools — your terminal, scp and rsync for files, a forwarded port, or VS Code — use SSH. It travels through RentGPUPower, so nothing is opened on the host's router or on yours, and it works behind any network.

What you need

  • A rental on a machine with the Docker sandbox. Most listings have it, and the listing says so. SSH runs inside your rental's own container, never on the host's system.
  • An API key from the developers page — a full key, not a read-only one.
  • Node.js 22 or newer, and the ssh client that comes with Windows 10 and 11, macOS and Linux.

1. Install the command line

On macOS or Linux:

mkdir -p ~/bin && curl -fsSL https://rentgpupower.com/cli/gpurent.js -o ~/bin/gpurent && chmod +x ~/bin/gpurent
export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH" GPURENT_API_KEY=gpuapi_...

On Windows, in PowerShell:

iwr -UseBasicParsing https://rentgpupower.com/cli/gpurent.js -OutFile $HOME\gpurent.js
$env:GPURENT_API_KEY = "gpuapi_..."

On Windows, type node $HOME\gpurent.js wherever this guide says gpurent.

2. Connect

Your rental's number is in the address of its page (/rental/123), and the SSH panel on that page shows these commands with the number filled in.

gpurent ssh 123

The first time, this adds your public key — ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub (or id_rsa.pub), or the key you name with --identity; if you have none, it makes one — and turns SSH on in your rental's container. That takes about half a minute: an SSH server is installed inside your container, accepting keys only, never passwords. Then you are in, as root, in your own container.

To run a single command and come back: gpurent ssh 123 -- nvidia-smi.

3. Use plain ssh, scp, rsync and VS Code

gpurent ssh-config 123 >> ~/.ssh/config

This adds a Host gpurent-123 block whose ProxyCommand carries the connection through the site. (In Windows PowerShell, >> writes a format ssh cannot read: pipe into Add-Content -Encoding ascii $HOME\.ssh\config instead.) From then on, the usual tools just work:

ssh gpurent-123
scp model.safetensors gpurent-123:/workspace/
rsync -avP ./dataset/ gpurent-123:/workspace/dataset/

scp and rsync handle files of any size, and rsync -P picks up where an interrupted copy stopped when you run it again. rsync must exist inside the container too: apt-get install -y rsync adds it if your image lacks it.

VS Code: install the Remote-SSH extension, run Remote-SSH: Connect to Host… and choose gpurent-123. VS Code starts the ProxyCommand without your shell's environment, so also save your API key in ~/.gpurent/api_key — the command line reminds you.

Port forwarding

A notebook, TensorBoard or any web app running on the GPU can open on your own computer:

ssh -L 8888:127.0.0.1:8888 gpurent-123

Then browse to http://127.0.0.1:8888. Without SSH, the command line forwards a single port by itself: gpurent tunnel 123 8888 (add --local 9000 to use another port on your side). For the tunnel, the app must listen on 0.0.0.0, not only on 127.0.0.1.

Long jobs

A program started in an SSH session stops when the session closes. For a training run, start it in the background and check on it whenever you reconnect:

nohup python train.py > train.log 2>&1 &
tail -f train.log

Before the rental ends

/workspace keeps your files for the whole rental, across sessions and reconnects, and is deleted when it ends. Copy results back with scp or rsync, or save them to My Drive from the rental page, before your time runs out. For what to run once you are in, see Fine-tune an LLM on a rented GPU or Rent a GPU with your own Docker image.

FAQ

Does the host have to open a port?

No. The connection rides the host machine's own outgoing connection through RentGPUPower, and only your key gets in. Nothing is opened on anyone's router.

Why can I not turn SSH on?

Either the machine runs without the Docker sandbox, or your image has no package manager to install an SSH server with — use an image with apt, apk, dnf or yum, or one that already contains openssh-server. The browser terminal on the rental page is still there.

Can I sign in with a password?

No. SSH here accepts keys only.

Does SSH cost extra?

No. You pay the rental's hourly price and nothing on top.