Scope
You may want to connect remotely to one of the Luddy School linux servers from your PC, Mac, Linux, iPad, Android, Chromebook, or other device. You can connect to our Linux systems using the SSH protocol for both remote login and file transfer. See the sections below for pointers to the software you will need in order to connect.
You may also want to use SSH keys for access instead of an account passphrase which is helpful for group/team accounts where you don't know the account passphrase and/or aren't able to do DUO authentication. Further information about this is available in the KB page Using SSH Key Authentication On The Unified Linux Systems
Note that the majority of the Luddy School Linux servers do not have SSH open to the world. You should be able to connect from any system within the IU network but if you are connecting from outside of the IU network you will first need to make a connection to the IU VPN. Two notable exceptions are burrow.luddy.indiana.edu (aka silo.luddy.indiana.edu) and sharks.luddy.indiana.edu (aka. gh.luddy.indiana.edu) which have SSH open to the world but require 2-Factor DUO authentication.
Remote Logins
If you want to log into a linux system (eg. burrow, silo, tank, hulk, etc) remotely and get a shell (aka. terminal) login, you will need to use what is called SSH client software. Such software is freely available for virtually any platform. Here are some available tools for common platforms:
- Windows - The recommended SSH client on Windows is PuTTY. You can get this for free by downloading putty.exe. When you fire up putty, it will ask for the server you want to connect to (eg. burrow.luddy.indiana.edu), your username (which will be your IU username or a group account you may be using) and passphrase.
- Mac OS X and Linux - OpenSSH is a command-line SSH suite that is packaged with Mac OS X and virtually every Linux distribution. Simply open up a terminal window on your Mac or Linux system and run something like "ssh username@burrow.luddy.indiana.edu". Just replace username with your IU username or a group account you may be using and specify the desired server you want to log into in place of burrow.luddy.indiana.edu. You will be prompted for your IU passphrase or the passphrase of a group account and, in some cases, you may have to do DUO 2-factor authentication.
- iOS, Android, Chromebook - Just about every mobile platform with an app store will have an SSH client available. Just go to your app store and search for "SSH Client" or "SSH" and you should see various options.
File Transfer
If you want to move files between your system and one of the Linux servers, you will want to use an SSH file transfer program. This might be a GUI client or a command line tool like SFTP or SCP. Such software is freely available for virtually any platform. Here are some available tools for common platforms:
- Windows - The recommended SSH file transfer client on Windows is WinSCP. You can get this for free from the WinSCP home page.
- Mac OS X - The recommend GUI file transfer client for Mac OS X is Cyberduck. This is donationware but you can get it for free from the Cyberduck home page. Note that if you try to get Cyberduck from the normal app store, you may find that only the pay version is available there. Also note that Cyberduck may default to using the FTP protocol which will NOT work with the Luddy Linux systems. You must change the protocol to SFTP.
On the Macs, you can also use the standard OpenSSH command lines tools sftp and scp to do file transfer. Search for documentation for sftp and scp if you want to use these tools. - Linux - OpenSSH is a command-line SSH suite that is packaged with the command line scp and sftp tools that you can use to do file transfer. There are also various GUI file transfer SSH clients available for various linux distributions. Filezilla is one popular GUI tool but your linux distribution may have others.
- iOS, Android, Chromebook - Just about every mobile platform with an app store will have an SSH file transfer client available. Just go to your app store and search for something like "SSH file transfer" or "SFTP" and you should see various options.