How to connect to Debian via SSH?

Question

SSH

A friend had a web server on debian, which was administered by a person. The person stopped communicating and all that is from him is a text ssh key of 12 characters of the form E2~nI{!9k94W and login/password. A friend asked me to help figure out how to connect. When trying to connect via ssh, the client server responds with "Permission denied (publickey)". Where should I put or enter this ssh key?

Answer 1

If login/password won't let you in, it's very sad.
The private ssh key should be much longer than 12 characters, by 12 characters it is most likely the fingerprint of the host, it is useless.
You can contact support to reset your root password if they do this on user machines.