Using Secure Shell

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SSH is a Secure SHell.

• It provides a mechanism for providing secure communication (encrypted data) between a client and a server thereby removing the spoofing of network traffic to gather sensitive data, i.e. username/password etc.
• Once you connect to the server from a client, all network traffic goes through a tunnel where it is encrypted at one end and decrypted at the other. Everything that goes through the connection is encrypted and therefore safe.
• This client will be used to replace telnet in the future.

Unix

• For Unix users, eg Linux, a client is usually supplied.
• A good site for how to set up your linux machine is http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/security/ssh.html
• If you require SSH for Unix and do nott have a client, you can download an SSH Client from http://www.ssh.com/ or http://www.openssh.com and use this to connect to Sirius.

Windows

If  you are using a Microsoft OS. If so, you will need to do the following:

1. If you have not previously used this type of connection software you may need to Modify your Windows registry to allow plain text passwords to be passed to Sirius
   (refer Plaintext help web page).
2. Download the SSHWinClient-3.0.0 client for Windows or see http://www.ssh.com/   for other versions.
3. Install the SSH client software then change the setting for QUT.
4. The QUT non-commercial license file is SSHlic.dat. Download or copy this into a file and import it through the 'Help' menu option using 'Import License File'.
5. Next edit settings for profile settings tunnelling to tick tunnel X-11 sessions.
6. Connect to Sirius

PC X Windows sessions

1. Run eXcursions or some other X emulator on your PC so as to be able to receive X applications from a server (Sirius). Note: use the eXcusions control panel to turn the eXcusions XDMCP off and to change to multiple windows for more control.
2. Start a Secure Shell session and login to Sirius when you need an X display. This should appear in the eXcursions window. You can test this by calling xclock

or alternatively

1. Start a Secure Shell session and login to Sirius.
2. Login to Sirius with eXcursions.
3. Go back to Secure Shell Set the DISPLAY variable in the environment (server side) that you wish to display to, i.e. using your pc's ip number 131.181.xxx.xxx (this may be dinamically allocated from the dialin login process)
   
   e.g. on Sirius-> xterm -display 131.181.xxx.xxx:0 &
   or
   on Sirius-> setenv DISPLAY 131.181.124.122:0; xterm &
   
4. From Secure Shell session then send any any other xterms or winterms back to your PC or workstation from Sirius using Secure Shell

Example

Host name: sirius (or sirius.qut.edu.au)
User name: QUT Access name (or sirius login name)
Port number: 22
Authentication method: Password