diff --git a/src/libstore/ssh.cc b/src/libstore/ssh.cc
index 0d3c4eeb5b4..eba40a04ea4 100644
--- a/src/libstore/ssh.cc
+++ b/src/libstore/ssh.cc
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ SSHMaster::SSHMaster(const std::string & hostNport, const std::string & keyFile,
     , compress(compress)
     , logFD(logFD)
 {
-    auto res = split(hostNport, ':');
+    auto res = tokenizeString<std::vector<string>>(hostNport, ":");
     port = res.size() > 1 ? atoi(res[1].c_str()) : 0; // if we have a port, parse that
     host = res[0];