Lecture notes for the Introduction to Computer Science I by James Tam Return to the course web page

A brief introduction for starting SSH

Note: This is only a beginners tutorial for getting up and running with this program.  You are of course encouraged to learn additional features such as creating custom profiles or using the file transfer features of SSH (for printing your programs from home).

  1. Run SSH from the start menu (or with non-Windows based programs start it as you would start any other program for that operating system).
  1. Select the 'Quick connect' option.
 
  1. A dialog box will come up.  You only need to enter values for the first two input fields (don't change the information listed in the other fields).
 
  1. Host name: refers to the name of the Computer Science server that you want to establish a connection to.   Here is a current list of the servers that are available.  Make sure that you pick a Linux based machine that you are allowed to access.   Don't try to login to one that is restricted to Profs or graduate students because you won't be allowed to make a connection and pick a Solaris based machine in case there are any compatibility issues between programs written on Solaris vs. programs written on Linux.
 
  1. User Name: refers to the name that you were assigned for your Computer Science account (which is separate from the general computer accounts that are given to all university students).  Your user name will be listed on the piece of paper that you picked up from MS151 that contained your account information.
 
  1. Next a password dialog will come up.   You need to enter your password for your Computer Science account (which may not necessarily be the same as your password for your general university account).
 
  1. Assuming that you correctly entered the information for the previous steps you should see the current message of the day come up (which of course won't look identical to the message of the day when you actually login because it changes every so often) and a UNIX prompt which should be the same one that you get when you use the machines here.  Congratulations you have now successfully logged onto your Computer Science account from another machine.  It is a text-only connection meaning that you can't use graphical programs like XEmacs or the menu options in Emacs but otherwise you will be able to complete your assignments as if you were working on a machine in one of the Computer Science labs.  Files that you save with Emacs will be saved to your Computer Science account so there is no need to worry about transferring things back and forth.  Again you are encouraged to try out some of the other features of this program (which you can read about at the following link: http://old.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/Help/internet/ssh/) which provide handy shortcuts like creating profiles but this short tutorial should be enough to get you started.