# SSH Key for remote terminal **URL:** \ **Category:** Product support\ **Created:** [March 26, 2020, 12:53am UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/ssh-key-for-remote-terminal/85789 "2020-03-26T00:53:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SplitIce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SplitIce](https://forums.balena.io/u/SplitIce)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2020, 12:53am UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/ssh-key-for-remote-terminal/85789/1 "2020-03-26T00:53:12Z")
Looking into hardening the development image (I know, shouldn’t be necessary) due to being forced to sometimes put our development devices into not 100% friendly locations. Mostly to keep away curious interlopers. One thing we would like to do is introduce a root key into our BalenaOS build. However by my understanding the Balena Cloud terminal uses the root user with no password for SSH access. Correct? Have you ever considered installing a default key for Balena Cloud? ---
**Author:** ![gelbal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/balena/user_avatar/forums.balena.io/gelbal/32/1109_2.png) [@gelbal](https://forums.balena.io/u/gelbal)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2020, 9:11am UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/ssh-key-for-remote-terminal/85789/2 "2020-03-26T09:11:55Z")
Hi @SplitIce, Your understanding is correct. Then we strongly suggest to deploy devices running production images out in the wild. While development images have passwordless root access enabled, production images require an SSH key to be added to the `config.json` file. We do support providing default keys on balenaCloud. You could read on how to add SSH key and in general SSH access here: > **[SSH access - Balena Documentation](https://www.balena.io/docs/learn/manage/ssh-access/#add-an-ssh-key-to-balenacloud)** > > Communicate with the host OS and service containers via SSH with balena Let us know of any further comments and questions.