ITEE Student IT Help » Remote Access to the ITEE Student Network

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Remote access is defined as access from networks other than those controlled by ITEE for example: connecting from one of UQ's libraries or from your home IS considered to be remote access, whilst connecting from one of ITEE's lab PCs IS NOT considered to be remote access.

Remote access to the ITEE Student Network is only permitted via the SSH protocol (Secure Shell). You can connect from anywhere outside of ITEE, using any SSH client, to remote.students.itee.uq.edu.au on port 22.

SSH provides an encrypted connection that allows secure UNIX logins, file transfer and tunnelling of X11 applications to a remote display.

Two options for making SSH connections, supported by ITEE, are described below:

• via SSH Communications' Secure Shell Client (capable of SSH2, forwarding X11 connections, and SFTP file transfer)
• via PuTTY (SSH2 capable [no SFTP], X11 forwarding, and very small!)
• via OpenSSH 2.5.2p2+ (installed on many Linux systems by default, capable of forwarding X11 and SFTP file transfer)

SSH Communications' Secure Shell Client

ITEE uses this client internally for on its Windows 2000/XP lab machines. It includes a drag 'n' drop file manager that makes file transfer to/from ITEE quite simple.

An evaluation version of the client is available below. Should you decide to use the client more-permanently for academic/non-commercial use, you should agree to the license agreement and download the non-commercial version of the client from http://www.ssh.com/support/downloads/secureshellwks/non-commercial-license.html.

• SSHSecureShellClient-3.2.9.exe (~ 6MB)
file

Connecting with SSH Communications' SSH

Initial connection attempts can be made with this client fairly easily; it is recommended that you create a profile as described in the Forwarding X11 Connections section, below.

1. Connect to the Internet.
2. Start the "Secure Shell Client" from the "SSH Secure Shell" program folder.
3. Click "Quick Connect", and enter the settings shown below - replacing s123456 with your ITEE Student Network Username. Note that the correct "Host Name" for the ITEE remote access server is remote.students.itee.uq.edu.au - it is truncated in the image.

   

4. Click "Connect", and enter your ITEE Student Network Password when prompted. You should now be logged into one of the available Student UNIX servers.

Forwarding X11 Connections with SSH Communications' SSH

To forward X11 applications outside of ITEE is a little more involved. Firstly, you need to run an X server on your local machine. The instructions below assume that you are running the X-Windows server X-Win32 by StarNet Communications. A one-month license is available free from StarNet's download page, or you can use it without a license in "Demo" mode for 2-hours per run. A number of other X-Windows servers are also available for download at the Tucows X-Windows Servers page.

It is recommended that you use X-Win32 in "Multiple Window Mode" for the best performance over a slow connection. This means that individual application windows on your system are managed locally by Windows, and will show as a separate item on your task bar. This results in like minimizing/maximizing a window being handled locally, significantly reducing the amount of data that must traverse the Internet to your home PC.

To configure your PC to operate as above, after installing the SSH Client above and X-Win, perform the following steps:

1. Start the "X-Config" application located in your X-Win program folder.
2. In the "Sessions" tab, remove all the sessions that were installed by default - they are not required.
3. In the "Window" tab, ensure that "Multiple" Window Mode is selected, "When Requested" is set for the Backing Store, and both "Multiple Settings" options are ticked. These settings should be the defaults just after installation.
4. In the "Security" tab, ensure that the "X-Host list" is empty and the "Access Control" and "Use XAuth" boxes are unchecked. Once again, these settings should be the defaults.
5. Exit X-Config.
6. Start the "Secure Shell Client" from the "SSH Secure Shell" program folder.
7. Add a new profile via "File, Profiles, Add Profile". Enter a name for your connection (e.g. "ITEE Student Net" - it doesn't really matter what you choose, just substitute what you choose in the instructions below) and press enter.
8. Edit the newly created profile, via "File, Profiles, Edit Profile". Select the profile name you just entered in the left hand window.
9. In the "Connection" tab, set "Host Name" to remote.students.itee.uq.edu.au and "User Name" to your ITEE Student Network Username. For increased performance as described above, set "Encryption Algorithm" to Arcfour, and "Compression" to zlib.
10. In the "X11 Tunneling" tab, check the "Tunnel X11 connections" checkbox.
11. Click "OK" to save the profile settings.
12. Exit the SSH Client.

At this point you are ready to connect and use X11 applications. To ensure correct operation, follow the order below in making your connection.

1. Connect to the Internet.
2. Start "X-Win32" from your X-Win program folder. You should see a small icon appear in your system tray (on the bottom right of the screen).
3. Start the "Secure Shell Client" again.
4. Select "File, Profiles, ITEE Student Net". If this is the first time you have connected, you will be prompted to save a "Host Key". It is safe to save the key to the local database by clicking "Yes".
5. In the "Enter Password" dialog box that appears, enter your ITEE Student Network Password. Once you enter the correct password, you will be presented with the Message-of-the-day and a UNIX shell prompt.
6. If you have followed the above steps correctly, you should now be able to run X applications on your local PC. The easiest way to check is by running "xterm &". If all is now set up okay, you should receive a shell prompt immediately back, and after a few seconds, an "xterm" will appear on your task bar. Click on this xterm window, and you are now using X! You can start other applications like xemacs, etc, this way too.

If, after following these instructions, you receive a message ending in the text "Can't open display:" there are a few obvious things to check:

1. Is X-Win32 still running - do you have the icon in your system tray? Does right clicking on it bring up a menu? If you have had to redial after a modem dropout, you may need to "reset" the X server (killing all current sessions), or even "close" and restart X-Win before it will operate correctly again.
2. Go back and check that the profile you created has the "Tunnel X11 connections" checkbox checked, and that this was the profile that you selected when you made the connection.

You can also improve performance on low bandwidth connections such as modems, by using lbx.

PuTTY

PuTTY is a small Win32 SSH2 client.

A local copy, known to work with ITEE systems, is available for download here.

• putty.exe (~412kB)
• puttygen.exe, its RSA key-generation program (~160kB, not needed)

To use PuTTY:

1. Connect to the Internet.
2. Run "putty" from wherever you saved its .EXE file.
3. Set the hostname to remote.students.itee.uq.edu.au.
4. Select SSH as the protocol (the port number should change to 22 automatically).
5. Optionally save these settings by entering a name in the "Stored Sessions" box and clicking "Save" - you can connect later by double-clicking the session's name
6. Click 'Open' at the bottom of the window.
7. You should receive a prompt saying: 'login as:'. If you do not, check your settings and try again.
   Respond by entering your login name (e.g. s123456) and pressing enter.
8. You will now receive a prompt requesting your password: 's123456@remote.students.itee.uq.edu.au's password:'.
   Enter your ITEE Student Network Password, and you should now be logged into one of the available Student UNIX servers.

OpenSSH 2.5.2p2+

OpenSSH is the Secure Shell server that runs on remote.students.itee.uq.edu.au. The client you need to connect to ITEE is installed by default on Debian Linux (from potato on) and RedHat 7.1 (at least) by default. You also need to have the "xauth" program installed on your machine for X11 forwarding to work correctly.

To connect to the ITEE student network from your home Linux machine, and forward X11 connections:

1. Connect to the Internet.
2. Inside an xterm on your local machine, run: "ssh -X -C remote.students.itee.uq.edu.au -l s123456" - replacing s123456 with your ITEE Student Network Username.
3. You should receive a prompt requesting your password: 's123456@remote.students.itee.uq.edu.au'.
   Enter your ITEE Student Network Password, and you should now be logged into one of the available Student UNIX servers.

If you wish to save these settings somewhere, so you can just type "ssh ITEE" or similar, to connect to ITEE, you can add the following lines to the top of your /etc/ssh/ssh_config.

Host ITEE
  Hostname remote.students.itee.uq.edu.au
  User s123456
  ForwardX11 yes
  Compression yes

See the manual page ssh(1) for more information on the format of the ssh_config file.