## SSH into a specific instance of a scaled service

You can now open a shell session to a specific instance of a [scaled service](/content/docs/scaling/index.html). Previously, shell sessions always selected an instance at random.

- **In the Render Dashboard,** open a service's **Shell** page and select a specific instance from the **Instance** dropdown:

Selecting an instance in the dashboard shell

- **When connecting over SSH,** include an instance's 5-character slug in the hostname. Here's an example command:

`ssh srv-abc123-d4e5f@ssh.oregon.render.com`

In this example, the instance slug is `d4e5f`. You append this value to the service ID, separated by a hyphen as shown.

You can obtain the slug of a running instance from your service's logs and metrics in the Render Dashboard. You can also open a dashboard shell session to a particular instance directly from these views:

Opening a dashboard shell session from the log explorer

Opening a dashboard shell session from service metrics

Learn more about SSH support in the [documentation](/content/docs/ssh/index.html).