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USING UNIX FROM ANYWHERE


 On campus

Many workstations are available
 Locally, a number of SUN workstations are available for public access. Since all are connected to the local Ethernet 'backbone', they can all be accessed remotely ie. from any terminal on campus, by dialup, or through a direct network connection.  Additionally,  most of these workstations are in public terminal areas in 524 Engineering or 109-115 Machray, 237 Agriculture, or 8 Dafoe which means that they may be used directly from the console, taking full advantage of the window-driven user interfaces. Since all of these public workstations access the same filesystems, it should be transparent to the user which of them is actually being used. By distributing userload among many workstations, the performance of the system is greatly enhanced.  As of this writing, the following login servers are accessible from anywhere:

Since the availability of certain workstations and servers will change from time to time, a current list of workstations can be obtained by typing 'machines', or going to http://www.umanitoba.ca/cgi-bin/wyatt/machines . In general, you should be able to log onto a different workstation each time, and notice no difference in how things work. Although you can log into most of the workstations listed by 'machines' it is usually better to login to machines designated as 'login servers'.

Remote Sessions

Configuring your Home Internet Connection

If you have cable modem or DSL service, skip this part. If you use a dialup connection, you can connect to the backbone by modem using SLIP or PPP, protocols that transfer TCP/IP packets across telephone lines. With SLIP or PPP connections AND a fast modem, you can do anything from home that you can do on campus, including running a full X-windows session. For more information, click here .

Text-only

SSH - command line session

SSH is a secure protocol for running remote terminal sessions. In an SSH session, all traffic between computers is encrypted. SSH replaces the insecure TELNET protocol, implemented in programs such as TetraTerm.  Putty is a terminal program that implements SSH. If Putty is not already on your system, it can be downloaded from:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Download putty.exe and start the program. A dialog will pop up.  Choose these settings:

Host name: ccu.umanitoba.ca
Protocol: SSH

Click on OK and Putty will connect to the remote system. The first time you connect to any new system, a popup will appear with a message like " The server's host key is not cached...". Click on 'Yes' to continue. At this point a terminal window will pop up, and you will be prompted for your userid and password. 


Login as user: frist
frist@ccu's password: ********
Last login: Thu May 13 10:38:37 2004 from smith.cc.umanit
{antares:/home/plants/frist}

The Unix prompt may look a bit different the first time you login.  

Graphic Interface

VNC - Your Unix desktop from ANY computer

VNC lets you run a Unix session from anywhere, either inside a Web browser, or using the simple vncviewer, available for most computer platforms. See VNC - Virtual Network Computing

Direct X11 connections from other Unix hosts

If you have a Linux machine at home, and a high-speed connection (cable modem preferred), you can use your computer as an X-terminal. Insteadof typing 'startx' to start an X11 desktop, type 

X -query host

where host is either the name of a host or an IP address. For example, to run an X11 session on goad, type

X -query goad.cc.umanitoba.ca