SSH¶
Some SSH related frequently asked questions are documented down below.
For more in-depth details, other options, please consult the man pages:
man ssh and man ssh_config.
Login via ssh keys¶
To login to a server without typing in your password every time, you can
configure ssh to use public key cryptography. In case you use a linux system
start by generating a pair of keys and saving them in the folder .ssh:
$ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -a 100 -f .ssh/id_sigma2
Make sure to enter a passphrase to encrypt the key.
To copy and install the public key to the server, for example saga, we use:
$ ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_sigma2 <username>@saga.sigma2.no
Note, this command may create the directory ~/.ssh on the target machine (saga.sigma2.no in the example above) if it did not exist yet. The directory will have the standard file permissions (see umask -S). The directory ~/.ssh requires stricter permissions. To set permissions correctly, you need to login to the machine (using your password once more) and change the permissions to 0700 with the command chmod 0700 ~/.ssh. You may of course check what the permissions are beforehand by running something like ls -ld .ssh
Using ssh keys has the added benefit that you can avoid having to type your
password every time. ssh-agent is program installed on virtually all linux
versions to manage the keys so that you only have to unlock the key once. We
can add the new key with:
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_sigma2
We recommend you configure your ssh client by adding a section for each Sigma2
system you have access to by editing .ssh/config:
Host saga
Hostname saga.sigma2.no
User myusername
IdentityFile .ssh/id_sigma2
This will let you simply type ssh saga, rather than e.g. ssh myusername@saga.sigma2.no -i .ssh/id_sigma2
For more information see keygen.
Windows ssh client¶
In Windows 10 and newer you can now get a fully functional Linux terminal by installing WSL.
This will not only give you a shell with the ssh client, but also let you
install and use all of your favourite Linux software such as Vim, Emacs,
nano, perl, python and so on.
X11 forwarding¶
X11 forwarding should be used with caution due to security implications. Please note that if someone can read your X authorization database 2, that person would be able to access the local X11 display through the forwarded connection.
We suggest switching it on only when needed, with the use of options (-X or
-Y) passed to the ssh command. Whenever possible, use -X option to mark
remote X11 clients untrusted.
In some cases -X will fail to work and either the use of -Y option or
setting ForwardX11Trusted in your ssh config file to “yes” is required. In
this case remote X11 clients will have full access to the original X11 display.
Alternatively, if X11 forwarding is always needed, you can configure it on a
per-host basis in your .ssh/config file.
.ssh/config example:
# global settings
ForwardX11 no # disable X11 forwarding
ForwardX11Trusted no # do not trust remote X11 clients
# per-host based settings, example for Fram
Host fram # alias, you may run "ssh fram" only
HostName fram.sigma2.no # actual hostname for Fram
User my_username # replace with your username on Fram
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_fram # pointer to your private SSH key
ForwardX11 yes # enable X11 forwarding
ForwardX11Trusted no # do not trust remote X11 clients
SHA256 fingerprint¶
No matter how you login, you will need to confirm that the connection shall be
trusted. The first time you log in to a machine via ssh, you will get a
message like
The authenticity of host '<hostname>' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is <fingerprint>.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?
If the <fingerprint> matches the fingerprint of the login machine you are
logging in to (see below), you can confirm by typing yes and press Enter.
(Note that the trailing “.” is not part of the fingerprint.) If the fingerprint
does not match, please contact support@metacenter.no immediately.
The following table displays the different keys, both as MD5 and SHA256,
for all systems.
System |
RSA |
ECDSA |
ED25519 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
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|
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|
|
|
|
|
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|
|
To display all fingerprints for a certain server, you can use the following command on your local machine (Linux or Mac):
$ ssh-keyscan login.nird.sigma2.no | ssh-keygen -l -f - -E md5
# Note, 'md5' can be changed with 'sha256' to display that variant
Mosh¶
A description of Mosh:
Remote terminal application that allows roaming, supports intermittent connectivity, and provides intelligent local echo and line editing of user keystrokes.
Mosh is a replacement for interactive SSH terminals. It’s more robust and responsive, especially over Wi-Fi, cellular, and long-distance links.
Mosh is in many instances a drop-in replacement for ssh (and actually utilizes
ssh under the hood for establishing a connection). It is recommended to use
Mosh if you connect to Sigma 2 resources from a laptop and want to keep the
connection when roaming on Wi-Fi or putting the laptop to sleep.
Since Mosh uses ssh to establish a connection it can use the same ssh keys
and configuration, as described above. Which mean that if you created the keys
above and added a section to your .ssh/config you can connect by doing the
following
$ mosh saga # Equivalent to 'mosh <username>@saga.sigma2.no'
For more detailed usage information see the Mosh homepage.
Unfortunately to support the features of Mosh not everything ssh can do is
supported, if you require any of the following you will have to use ssh
X11forwardingPort forwarding
SSHFS¶
fram.sigma2.no and login.fram.sigma2.no are round-robin DNS
entries, every time you use this name the round-robin configuration
will send you to one of the following two login nodes:
login1.fram.sigma2.no and login2.fram.sigma2.no
When you use sshfs, to make sure your authentication is valid, you should
always specify one of the real login nodes above. You should not use
login.fram.sigma2.no or fram.sigma2.no in your sshfs command, otherwise
you will risk to get your IP address blacklisted, since your session is
authenticated against only one login node not both.
Similarly, saga.sigma2.no and login.saga.sigma2.no are round-robin DNS
entries for login-1.saga.sigma2.no, login-2.saga.sigma2.no.
Poor connection¶
In case of poor connection to the server (likely from a very remote area),
usually noticeable with X11 forwarding enabled, you may request data compression
by using the -C option.
Please note that the compression uses the CPU to compress-decompress all data sent over ssh and will actually have negative impact, slow down things on a fast network.
- 2
By default your X authority database is stored in the
~/.Xauthorityfile. This file contains records with authorization information used in connecting to the X server.