CS368: Learning a New Programming Language
Using SCP/SSH to connect to CS Computers - Lec 1, Spring 2015


  In this page: Copying | Connecting
  Related pages: Home | Computer Labs | Using SSH

Note: this information was written with Mac users in mind (since ssh and scp are available from the Mac OS Terminal), however, users of other platforms may also find it useful.

Windows users: the CSL recommends PuTTY as a free ssh client for Windows. You can also download pscp from the PuTTY website (pscp is PuTTY's version of scp and works pretty much the same as scp).

Copying to/from Your Computer and a CS Lab Computer

Use secure copy:

scp <source_of_file_to_be_copied> <destination_folder> Example: scp Desktop/H1.txt bbadger@best-linux.cs.wisc.edu:/u/b/b/bbadger/private/ (Note: if your computer will not allow you to connect to best-linux.cs.wisc.edu, try connecting to best-galapagos.cs.wisc.edu; if that doesn't work, try connecting to galapagos-NN.cs.wisc.edu where NN is a 2 digit number between 01 and 30.)

The first argument (<source_of_file_to_be_copied>) is where your file is currently located on your computer. The second argument (<destination_folder>) is the destination and should be an existing folder. In the example above, the file "H1.txt" is being copied from the desktop of a personal computer to the private CS directory of a person with the CS login "bbadger".  The general format for getting to your personal CS directory is /u/<first_letter_of_CS_login>/<second_letter_of_CS_login>/<CS_login>/

Note the slash (/) at end is important so that the source file is copied into the destination folder (as a file with the same name as the file on your computer) and not copied as a file with a new name (into a folder you don't intend it to go).

Remotely Connecting to a CS Lab Computer

  1. Go to the Terminal and enter:

    ssh <username>@best-linux.cs.wisc.edu

    where <username> is replaced with your CS login name.

    Note: if your computer will not allow you to connect to best-linux.cs.wisc.edu, try connecting to best-galapagos.cs.wisc.edu; if that doesn't work, try connecting to galapagos-NN.cs.wisc.edu where NN is a 2 digit number between 01 and 30.

  2. You may be prompted about something, just type in yes to add as a default.

  3. You will be prompted for your CS account password. (Your password will not show up as you type it.) Press enter and you are logged in.

  4. To logout, just type in "logout" on the command line.

Last Updated: 1/26/2015     ©2015 Beck Hasti