ssh and scp client software

Last update: October 10, 2000

Access to dns2.ableminds.com requires an authorized account and the use of ssh (secure shell) and scp (secure copy). You use ssh to login and get shell access. You use scp to transfer files. There is no standard ftp or telent access on dns2.ableminds.com, but you can use OTP (One-Time Passwords) with FTP. See our support page on OTP for more information on using FTP with OTP. There are freeware, shareware, and commercial ssh and scp clients for Macintosh, Windows and Unix platforms described on this page.

IMPORTANT: When you configure your client software, choose the 3DES encryption option to access our servers.

For a detailed FAQ on SSH, see http://www.employees.org/~satch/ssh/faq/ssh-faq.html. Another good article on ssh and protecting your network might be found at: http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/09/webm/.

Macintosh

A free ssh client for Macintosh that supports scp is NiftyTelnet SSH, a modified version of NiftyTelnet. Note that the RSA public-key encryption algorithm that Nifty Telnet uses is now in the public domain so it's legal to use Nifty Telnet and other US-developed implementations of ssh and scp in the United States.

A version of Better Telnet that supports ssh and scp might be forthcoming, but isn't available at present. Check http://www.cstone.net/~rbraun/mac/telnet/ for version 2.5 availability.

NiftyTelnet works fine with the Able Minds servers at present because we're still using the ssh v1 server, but it doesn't always work with ssh v2 servers. Conversely, MacSSH works with ssh v2 servers, but not with our v1 server. It is unfortunate that compatibility between v1 and v2 isn't transparent to users and client software, but such is life. For reference, however, the page for MacSSH is: http://www.macssh.com/

Someone at Caltech maintains a general page with info on ssh/scp clints for Macintosh/. Clients with support for scp that emerge over time might appear on this page.

Windows

Putty

Putty supports telnet, rlogin, ssh and decent terminal emulation and includes a Windows version of scp for the Windows command line. We have tried this at Able Minds yet and it seems like a winner.

ssh port for Windows

Someone took the Unix scp sources and ported them to Windows. The above page has instructions on how to add scp to a teraterm that already has ssh added. This solution does work based on our own experienced, but it's an involved process to put together a working binary.

Someone at Caltech maintains a general page with info on ssh/scp clients for Windows/. Clients with support for scp that emerge over time might appear on this page.

Unix

Unix systems often have ssh and scp installed. Use `man ssh` and `man scp` for detailed information. The following examples show how to use scp. Replace username with your login name on the specified server. You will be prompted for your permission. To copy or transfer files you will need appropriate read and write permissions on the remote system.

While logged on a Unix server, to copy a file from dns2.ableminds.com to the working directory:
    scp username@dns2.ableminds.com:/www/sitename/htdocs/index.html .

While logged on a Unix server, to copy a file to dns2.ableminds.com:
    scp some_file.html username@dns2.ableminds.com:/www/sitename/htdocs/

While logged on dns2.ableminds.com, to copy file from dns2 to another server:
    scp some_file.html username@anotherserver.com:/www/sitename/htdocs

While logged on dns2.ableminds.com, to copy file to dns2 from another server:
    scp username@anotherserver.com:/some_dir/some_file.html /www/sitename/htdocs/

While logged on any Unix server with scp, to copy a file from dns1 to dns2:
    scp username@dns1.ableminds.com:/some_dir/some_file.html username@dns2.ableminds.com:/some_dir/

Note: The example above demonstrates that you can use scp to copy from any server to any other server assuming you have accounts, can specify valid pathnames, and scp is installed on all the servers.

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