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How to give limited access to developers in Gridpane

Michael Kwan · 23 March 2020 · Updated 15 August 2026

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The GridPane knowledgebase can be quite technical and intimidating. Here's a simple summary of the steps required to allow your developer to access sites in GP.

For FILES access only (via SFTP)

If your developer only needs file access, add them as a System User to your site. This limits their exposure to that specific site rather than the entire server.

  1. GridPane > Add System User > Add Username & Password (no need for Public Key)
  2. Assign the new system user to the site and note the server IP
  3. Provide the username, password, and server IP to your developer, for SFTP access via FileZilla or similar.
  4. Repeat steps 1-3 for a new server (username/password can be the same)
  5. For occasional database access, use the WP phpMyAdmin plugin instead

Full tutorial: https://gridpane.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033599471-Add-a-System-User-to-a-GridPane-Server (step 1 and half of step 2 is enough)

For FILES & DATABASE access

GridPane will only allow direct database connections for root users via SSH, so be sure you either trust the developer with the rest of your sites on that server, or only have that one site on that server.

Full tutorial: https://gridpane.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036735611-Generate-SSH-Key-on-Windows-with-Putty (with 7-min video)

Step 1: Create an SSH key

Puttygen after generating a public/private SSH key pair, showing the public key text box
  1. Download Puttygen (not to be confused with Putty), and launch it
  2. Generate a public/private key pair
    • Passphrase not needed
  3. Copy the text in the box (ssh-rsa...) and paste it into a txt file: username-publicsshrsa.txt
  4. Conversions > Export OpenSSH key > username-privateopenssh.key
  5. Save public key > username-publickey.key
  6. Save private key > username-privatekey.ppk
  7. Save these 3 files somewhere safe.

Step 2: Add public key to GridPane

GridPane's Add SSH Public Key screen under Your Settings, SSH Keys
  1. GridPane > Your Settings > SSH Keys > Add SSH Public Key
  2. Paste the key as text from username-publicsshrsa.txt

Step 3: Push key to GridPane server

GridPane server screen with the key icon used to push an SSH key to the server
  1. GridPane > Home > Server > Key icon > Available Keys > Username > Add key to server

Step 4: Add private key to Putty

Putty's Auth screen with the private key file loaded, ready to connect
  1. Putty > Connection > SSH > Auth > Upload Private Key > username-privatekey.ppk
  2. Putty > Session > Default Settings > Save

Step 5: Connect

Your developer should already be familiar with connecting to the server, but for completeness I'll include links here.

For file access: Connect via Filezilla

Full tutorial: https://gridpane.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033232872-Connect-to-a-GridPane-Server-by-SFTP-as-Root-user

For database access: Connect via MySQL client

Full tutorial: https://gridpane.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033232672-Connect-a-desktop-MySQL-client-with-a-database-by-SSH-as-root

For terminal access: Connect via Putty

  1. Session > IP Address > Open
  2. CLI > Login as: root
  3. Done!

Full tutorial: https://gridpane.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036735611-Generate-SSH-Key-on-Windows-with-Putty (step 5)

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