Migrate a site from DreamHost using SSH

This guide will show you how to securely share access to your site using SSH, so that you can migrate your site from DreamHost to WordPress.com.

Secure Shell (SSH) is a secure way for us to connect to your current host and copy your site safely. We use it to transfer a copy of your site’s content, media, plugins, themes, and database over an encrypted connection. Your existing site will stay online and unchanged during the migration, so visitors won’t notice any disruption until you’re ready to update your domain name to the newly-migrated site.

To find the SSH details for your site, take the following steps:

1. Log into your DreamHost panel.
2. Navigate to the SFTP Users & Files page:

3. Select an existing user and click the “Login info” button:

4. Make sure the toggle for “Secure Shell Access (SSH)” is set to enabled and the “Shell Type” is set to /bin/bash/ in the drop-down:

5. Copy the following details from the SSH Details panel and paste them onto WordPress.com:
   • Host into the Server address field.
   • Port into the Port field.

6. Click the “Verify server address” button.

In a few moments, we’ll validate if the details are correct for what we need to migrate a copy of your site to WordPress.com. If the details cannot be validated, please double check you have pasted the correct information or contact your host for support in obtaining the correct details.

Next, you’ll need to share your SSH details to grant WordPress.com secure access to your site to begin the migration:

1. Return to where you left off in your DreamHost “Login info” page.
2. Copy your username from the File Access section and paste it into the SSH username field on WordPress.com.
3. Click the “Change password” button on DreamHost to set a new password, and then paste that into the SSH password field on WordPress.com.
4. Click Continue: