Help:SSH
SSH, a.k.a. Secure Shell, is a replacement for telnet and ftp. The telnet and ftp protocols do not encrypt their data in any way and thus send all their data in plain-text, which can be relatively easy to look at for passwords and other sensitive data. SSH encrypts the packets so it is difficult for third parties to read the data. SSH is installed on most unix systems and there are a few windows clients as well.
Note that ssh access is not available off campus unless you first log in to the UCF VPN
- Software availability
- included with Unix, OS X
- See also
- help:VPN
- Other related software
- scp, rsync, mobaXterm
- command to type to run
- ssh, scp
- View online documentation
- man page
Windows 10, UNIX, including Linux and macOS/OSX[edit]
Windows 10 (and later) and Unix have ssh built in, and no additional software needs to be installed. The built in commands to use ssh from unix are:
- ssh
- run with ssh login@hostname (login@ part is optional if login name is the same); Use the -Y option to copy your display connection for graphical access in linux, or in OS X if X11 is running.
- scp
- run with scp source-files... user@remotehost:remotedirectory
- ssh-keygen
- generate SSH public/private key pair for authentication. defaults to RSA format, placed in ~/.ssh/id_rsa by default. See also Help:SSH Keys
- ssh-copy-id
- install your public key in a remote machine’s authorized_keys to allow login without a password
For additional details, check the ssh man pages.
See also:
- cyberduck or Mountain Duck
- cross platform graphical and command line file transfer that supports many storage server protocols including ssh
UNIX, including Linux and macOS/OSX[edit]
Additional functionality is built in for unix systems:
- rsync
- use ssh to copy directory trees incrementally
- rsync -aP source-directory/ user@remotehost:targetdirectory/
- sshfs
- can be used to transparently share directories between linux systems on a per-user basis (admin access not needed), for example
- sshfs yourlogin@remotehost:remotedirectory emptyLocalDir/
- Also works on mac (third party drivers necessary, breaks on sleep)
- XQuartz
- automatically started on MacOS when you use ssh -Y; recent versions of MacOS don't include this, download and install this
Windows[edit]
Windows 10 (and later) now has a built in ssh client, see above.
Addtionally, the following clients are recommended if the built in ssh does not satisfy your needs:
- OpenSSH
- Recent versions of windows now include OpenSSH. Try running ssh and scp in a command window and see if you have them. This does't include rsync.
- MobaXterm (Recommended)
- includes ssh, file transfer, and graphical X11 server
- PuTTY (locally hosted copy of putty.exe )
- text terminal access and X11 tunneling only
- Requires separate software for file transfer and graphical access
- WinSCP (local mirror of 5.1.7)
- file transfer only SCP/SFTP Client
- Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
- We have not tested X11 graphical access in WSL yet, and WSL2 may have networking complications. Let us know if you get it working with the linux ssh instructions above.
Please Note: FileZilla, a once popular FTP client, is now bug riddled and includes malware, so you really should not install it. It's basically a virus.