BCB at ISU - Computing Laboratory

Computing Laboratory

This is the SSH software I recommend:

Bear in mind that ssh is to telnet what scp is to ftp. Or, in other words, ssh is for interactive command line connections to a machine running an ssh server, whereas scp is for transfering files to and from a machine running an ssh server.

If one downloads PuTTY, one should be sure to also download pscp, since PuTTY does ssh, but not scp. To do scp on Windows, one needs something like pscp. For Macs, NiftySSH has built-in scp capabilities.

Links to additional resources

Here are just a few of the many online resources available about SSH:

Additions I make to the above list will probably show up here first, though in not quite so organized and annotated a fashion.

Cautionary notes for Mac users

If one uses NiftyTelnetSSH and also uses (the highly recommended) Kerberos-capable BetterTelnet from the ISU Micronet Scout package, one should take some care to use the right tool for the right machine: one can't use BetterTelnet to connect to SSH-only machines--it just won't work. Worse, though, from a security standpoint, is using NiftyTelnetSSH to connect to isua, albergo, or other Project Vincent machines without Kerberos-coordinated encryption. Use BetterTelnet for this, and make sure you see the little gold lock icon in the corner of your telnet window, which indicates you have an encrypted session.

What I like to do is to open a session for each type of connection and then to use the File->Save Session option (or something like that--I'll check when next I'm on a Mac--dja). Save the session settings to the desktop with the name of the computer you're using.

For example, connect to isua with BetterTelnet using kerberos. Save the session settings to your desktop with the name "isua". Then, connect to a BCBLab machine using NiftyTelnetSSH and save the session settings to the desktop with the name "microviz". Then, next time you need to log on, just click the appropriate desktop icon, and the right version of Telnet will start for the machine you are connecting to.

SSH is more secure than unencrypted telnet, and unlike telnet, can't be used without at least some encryption running. But, no security measure is a panacea, and to enjoy the full benefits, you must understand at least something about how it works and what it does for you and what it's vulnerabilties are. For the limtations of SSH/SSL, consider this analysis.