Home > Research Support Group > SSH > Configuration

Configuring SSH Secure Shell

The following guide assumes you want to connect to the WestGrid facilities at AICT. Configuration values will be different for other systems. If you have questions about this information needed to connect to a certain system, contact us at research.support@ualberta.ca

Step One:

Start the SSH Secure Shell Client by double clicking the icon on your desktop. The program should open a window like the one pictured below:

Step Two:

The next step is to create a configuration profile. This will tell SSH the name of the server you want to connect to. Click on "Profiles" and "Add Profile."

Step Three:

This brings up a dialog box that allows you to name the new profile. The default name is "Profile Name." Type a new name into the text box. In this guide, we'll use the name of one of the WestGrid remote servers.

Once you've typed in a name, click on "Add to Profiles." That saves the name of this profile.

Step Four:

Now we need to add information about the server. Go to the "Profiles" menu and click "Edit Profiles" as shown below. (Note that "Cortex" is now visible on our profile list.)

Step Five:

Clicking on "Edit Profiles" brings up a new window. We need to input a few pieces of information here. The first is the address of the server we want to connect to. In our example, that's Cortex, so we type:

                    Host Name:         cortex.westgrid.ca

The next piece of information we need to input is your westgrid username:

                    User Name:        WestGridUserName

Type the appropriate values into these boxes. (Don't worry about the other boxes--the default values should be okay.)

One last change worth making while we are here is to turn on "X forwarding". This option enables X Windows GUI windows to be sent to an X-server on your local machine for display. For this option to be usable you will need to have an X server installed and running on your machine. Examples of X servers are:

• Hummingbird Exceed, (price) which is available from the AICT Help Desk through the site license program.
• X-Win, (price) also available through the AICT Help Desk.
• X-Deep/32 (free). It is apparently no longer being developed, but it might be worth a look.
• Xming (free). Xming is a standalone package which shares the same source code base as Cygwin/X but does not depend on the Cygwin environment or cygwin1.dll.

Click on the "Tunneling" tab on the Profiles form.

In order to enable X forwarding, activate the checkbox "Tunnel X11 connections" located at the bottom of the form.

When you're done, click "OK". The program now has all the information it needs to connect to the designated server.

To return to the main SSH information page, hit the "back" button on your browser. To go directly to the connection help page, click here.

Revised: January, 2006