SSH

Secure Shell (SSH) is a standard that allows individuals to connect to remote servers in such a way that their login credentials are encrypted. It is the normal way Compute Canada users connect to our servers to execute commands , submit jobs, and follow the progress of these jobs.

Various software implementations of the SSH standard exist for most major operating systems. On OS X (Apple) and Linux the most widely used client is OpenSSH, a command line application which normally comes installed by default on these platforms. For Windows, individuals have to install an SSH client on their own: the two most common options are PuTTY and MobaXTerm. To use any of these implementations of SSH successfully, you need to know (1) the name of the machine to which you want to connect, (2) your userid and (3) your password.

When using Linux or Apple, you will need to open a terminal, for example /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app for Apple hardware, and then use the command shown below.

[name@server ~]$ ssh -X userid@machine_name

The option -X forwards X11 traffic which allows you to use graphical applications on the remote server such as certain text editors. Note that to use such graphical applications you also need to have an X11 server installed on your workstation, such as XQuartz for OS X. The first time that you connect to a remote server you'll be asked to store a copy locally of its "host key", a unique identifier that allows the ssh client to verify that this is the indeed the genuine server.

The use of Windows-based SSH clients and the more advanced topic of key pair generation are discussed in the pages below:

• Connecting with MobaXTerm
• Connecting with PuTTY
• SSH Keys
• Generating SSH keys in Windows
• Using SSH keys in Linux