SSH (Secure SHell) is a program to let you login securely to another computer on the Internet in order to use typed commands. It encrypts your username, password, and your session commands and output. For some applications this is much faster and simpler than using a Web interface. You must have a valid, authorised username and password for the remote machine.
Telnet is an earlier, insecure form of a similar service. SSH is now used instead of Telnet because Telnet transmits all data unencrypted, which is a security risk.
Most computers that you can log into this way use the Unix operating system or one of its derivatives (Linux and recent Apple Mac systems are all Unix-based). You will need to know what commands to type if you want to use such systems. There is a brief summary of some of the common commands in unixtips.
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1. Names and addresses
Before you start, you need to know the Internet hostname (or the numeric IP address) of the machine you want to log into.
The names of machines are usually in the format machine.site.network, for example rtfm.mit.edu or www.ucc.ie, but you can also use the numeric (IP) address if you know it (four numbers separated by dots, eg 143.239.1.112). Note that some countries add a fourth, and sometimes even a fifth, element to the name, eg juno.cs.soton.ac.uk.
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, Electronic Publishing Unit • 2009-04-22 • (other) |
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