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Logging onto PHAS Servers Securely

Secure logins refer to methodologies that allow secure data transfer over insecure networks. In particular, you do not want your passwords sent over a network in plaintext. The ssh protocol uses public-key cryptography to verify the authenticity of a remote host & to safeguard the data transferred between the remote host & a local client. There are 2 commonly used client applications:

  1. ssh a replacement for the telnet command, allows terminal access to a remote computer.
  2. scp secure copy allows the copying of files to/from a remote host

The department's login hosts ( ssh.phas.ubc.ca & ssh2.phas.ubc.ca) allow ssh connections from anywhere.

Windows Computers

  • For general SSH and sFTP access use PuTTY or MobaXterm.
  • Xming is a port of the X Window System to the Microsoft Windows; in particular it provides a X11 server.  This allows you to run a X11 application on a remote server and have the display on the local Windows system.
  • For transferring files securely from a Windows-based PC, we recommend FileZilla (also available for Linux and Mac computers).

Macintosh Computers

Mac OS X now include command line SSH and SCP.

  • On Mac OS X 10.3 Panther and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, X11 (XFree86 X11R6.8) is available as an optional install from installation disks.
  • Latter versions of Mac OS use an X11 implementation based on X.org

Linux and Unix Computers

  • All major distributions now include command line SSH and SCP.