How to connect to SSH server on alternate port

An SSH server, by default, listens to port 22, and you don't have to manually specify the port number on your SSH client if you're connecting to the server's default port.

You can specify the port number when connecting to non-standard SSH ports using the -p option or adding the port information in your SSH client's configuration file.

1. Check the port that the SSH server runs on.

   Related: How to change SSH server port
   Related: How to run SSH server on multiple ports

2. Test if the port that the SSH server listens to is reachable from the client host (optional).

   $ nc -zv remotehost 2022
   Connection to remotehost 2022 port [tcp/*] succeeded!

   -v      Produce more verbose output.
   -z      Only scan for listening daemons, without sending any data to
           them.  Cannot be used together with -l.

3. Specify the port to connect to using -p option.

   $ ssh remoteuser@remotehost -p 2022

4. Add port directive to SSH client configuration file for persistence.

   $ cat .ssh/config
   Host remotehost
       hostname 192.168.1.10
       user remoteuser
       port 2022

5. Connect again using SSH client with just the Host name without providing port number as parameter.

   $ ssh remotehost