Access

Whether you are a system administrator making configuration changes, an engineer actively debugging a node, or maintaining a CI/CD pipeline deploying code, the V4 platform provides secure, role-specific pathways for accessing your servers and the Webscale Control Plane.

Interactive User Access

For direct shell access to a target server, utilize either SSH Connect or the SSH Gateway .

When you authenticate and drop into a shell, your user session is automatically assigned to the dev group. Membership in this group grants access to run commands to maintain the environment and to update files in the /var/www directory.

To safely manage application files on the host, you must use the /shadow/www directory. This directory acts as an intelligent proxy to the actual web root (/var/www). By making your edits, uploads, and file manipulations within /shadow/www, the system ensures that the underlying ownership of all files is automatically and correctly maintained as www-data:www-data.

Important: You must always use /shadow/www for file manipulations. Writing directly to /var/www will bypass the proxy layer and result in incorrect file ownership, which can cause application errors and permission denials at runtime.

Automated and API Access

For automated workflows, such as CI/CD pipelines deploying code, or scripts interacting with the Control Plane API, access should always be routed through a Service User .

Creating a dedicated service user allows you to:

• Enforce least privilege: Service users can be strictly scoped, granting them only the exact permissions required by the automation and nothing more.
• Decouple access life-cycles: Tying automation to a specific human user is a fragile operational pattern. If that employee leaves the organization or their access is deactivated, any automated systems relying on their credentials will instantly fail. Service users exist independently of human personnel, ensuring your pipelines and scripts remain continuously operational.

Last modified on July 5, 2026