SSH at WFU

Requirements

This document presumes you're using a Wake Forest laptop with a recent standard load.

Introduction

SSH is not very different than telnet. SSH is a mechanism to take you to a shell, or command prompt, for a machine. Though using the command prompt can be frustrating, getting to the command prompt is easy. Here's what you do.

What To Do

  1. Go to the Start Menu
  2. Select "Internet Tools"
  3. Select "Other Tools"
  4. Select "PuTTY"

    Note: There are two SSH clients on your machine, PuTTY and SSH Secure Shell Client. These instructions are for putty.

  5. A window should open, titled "PuTTY configuration"
  6. Put the name of the machine you're trying to connect to in the "Host name" field, e.g. ac.wfu.edu
  7. Select the "SSH" radio button, just below and right of the "Host name" field
  8. Verify that the "Port" field, right above the radio button, changed to "22"
  9. Put a name in the "Saved Sessions" field. This name should remind you of the machine you're connecting to, e.g. "AC"
  10. Click the "Save" button
  11. Click the "Open" button to open your connection
  12. If your connection to the server went through, you should now see a new window appear, with the text "login as:" at the top. Enter your username.
  13. You should then be prompted for a password. Enter your password.
  14. When your username and password have been entered correctly, you will see a command prompt. You have completed this HOWTO.

In the Future

  1. Open PuTTY
  2. Double-click on the short name you used
  3. Log In

When you save a session, as instructed to do in "What to Do" when you click the "Save" button, the short name appears in the "Saved Sessions" list. You don't have to type in the server name ever again--instead, just double-click on the short name.

John Borwick