Table of Contents
What is a Secure Shell?
Secure Shell (SSH) is a cryptographic network protocol for secure data communication, remote shell services or command execution and other secure network services between two networked computers that it connects via a secure channel over an insecure network: a server and a client.
A secure shell client allows you to connect to a remote computer. If you wish to access the Vasser CS Department Unix system outside of the lab, you will need to use a secure shell. The secure utilities correspond to older, non-secure counterparts. For example:
- ssh A replacement for telnet. Allows you to “Log in” and have an interactive text connection to another computer.
- scp A replacement for rcp. Using scp, you can quickly copy files between computers over a network securely.
- sftp A replacement for ftp. Ftp, the file transfer protocol, has traditionally been used to browse file systems for download, and optionally allowing uploading to the server.
Using Secure Utilities
Instructions for installing and using these programs are given according to the operating system on your computer.
Common Problems
When running emacs from a ssh client, make sure to run it as:
“emacs -nw”
instead of
“emacs &”
so that emacs knows to run as a text based interface.
More information
To find out more about ssh, try visiting http://www.openssh.org. Also, the ssh-faq at http://www.employees.org/~satch/ssh/faq/ssh-faq.html covers a lot of common ssh questions.
Having problems?
Contact Ben (ben_at_cs_dot_vassar_dot_edu) for help conecting to the Computer Science computer system. Please include your operating system, ssh software you’re trying, and anything that seems to be amiss.
— Ben Stoutenburgh 2012/11/08 15:37
