SSH & Getting Help

If something's broken and you want help in Discord, SSH access plus a proper log dump gets you a real answer instead of "no wonder you have black screen." This page covers both.

SSH access by default

Distro	SSH enabled out of the box	Root login	Password auth
Ubuntu 26.04	Yes	No (use your user + sudo)	Yes
Arch	Yes	No	Yes
CachyOS	Yes	No	Yes
Fedora	Yes	No	Yes
Debian 12	No - disabled by default (public default creds)	No	Yes
Proxmox VE	Yes	Yes (root@pam, headless hypervisor)	Yes

On Debian, enable it yourself once you're at a desktop:

sudo systemctl enable --now ssh.service

Everywhere else it's already running - log in with the user account you created on first boot.

Find your PS5's IP

From the desktop, open a terminal:

ip -brief a

Look for the interface that's UP with an address in your LAN range (wlp* for WiFi, enp* for Ethernet). If you have no display, check your router's DHCP client list for a device named after your distro (e.g. ubuntu, archlinux).

SSH in

ssh <your-username>@<ps5-ip>

If it's your first time connecting, accept the host key prompt. From here you can debug over SSH even if the display is black - see Black Screen but SSH Works.

Collecting logs for a bug report

Before posting in Discord, grab everything relevant in one go:

{
  echo "=== uname ==="; uname -a
  echo "=== distro ==="; cat /etc/os-release
  echo "=== cmdline ==="; cat /proc/cmdline
  echo "=== lspci ==="; lspci -nn
  echo "=== dmesg ==="; dmesg
  echo "=== journal (this boot) ==="; journalctl -b --no-pager
  echo "=== amdgpu firmware ==="; ls /lib/firmware/amdgpu/
  echo "=== loaded modules ==="; lsmod
} > ps5-log-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M).txt 2>&1

Grab it off the PS5 with scp:

scp <user>@<ps5-ip>:ps5-log-*.txt .

Post the file in Discord (or a paste service, then link it) along with:

• What you expected vs. what happened
• Your distro, kernel version (uname -r), and firmware version
• Your monitor/cable if it's a display issue - include EDID if asked:

  cat /sys/class/drm/card*/card*-*/edid > edid.bin

Vague reports without logs are the #1 reason people don't get help fast.