External Access Host: quest

To access the SCS Linux network from outside of the School of Computer Science you must log into the SCS External Access Host called quest.scs.carleton.ca, IP address 134.117.27.10.

Quest has limited functionality ¹⁾ and primarily acts as a gateway to the other SCS Linux machines such as the zeta's. Note that you will need an ssh-2 client to connect to quest. Limited connectivity is possible to the SCS Vista Network from quest; students can access their Z-drive using an ftp-like protocol named 'winftp'.

The recomended way to log into quest.scs.carleton.ca is to use ssh. The recommended way to copy files is to use secure-ftp software such as scp (command line) or winscp (graphical) ²⁾.

Since Quest is primarily a gateway you can run a limited number of programs on it:

If you need to run programs other than above please ssh to the recommended least used host, or run sysinfo command.

The secure shell protocol or ssh is the encrypted version of rsh. The usage of ssh is as follows: ssh <hostname> -l <account> where <hostname> is your hostname and <account> your user ID, for example 'ssh zeta11 -l hsimpson'. The first time you ssh to a new host, ssh will automatically generate a new encryption key for that host. A sample session is as follows:

quest:~> ssh zeta11
Host key not found from the list of known hosts.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Host 'zeta11' added to the list of known hosts.
Type motd for the Message of the Day.
[hsimpson@zeta11 ~]$

There-after you can ssh to the host without specifying your password.

ssh can also be used to run commands on the remote machine using: ssh <hostname> <command>. For detailed information concerning ssh check the man pages (man ssh).

With the secure copy command or scp you can copy files from an external machine to your SCS account. Usage: scp <datafile> <username>@<hostname>:<datafile>. Example:

scp myFile.txt hsimpson@quest:myFileCopied.txt

Please check the man pages for further information concerning scp (man scp).

The following steps are used to log into the SCS unix network using the ssh protocol:

1. ssh quest.scs.carleton.ca -l <account>, (if this does not work try: ssh 134.117.27.13 -l <account> )
2. login with your UNIX password
3. Once your on quest then: 'ssh <hostname>', where <hostname> is the unix machine that you wish to connect to.

The following session user hsimpson logs onto zeta12:

{prince:1} ssh quest.scs.carleton.ca -l hsimpson
hsimpson@quest.scs.carleton.ca's password:

Welcome to Quest - SCS master external access host. For more info
please check out: http://www.scs.carleton.ca/help

quest:~> sysinfo | grep zeta12
zeta12 up 62 days, 4:14, load average: 0.00 0.00 0.00
quest:~> ssh zeta12
Last login: Thu Jan 27 13:27:15 2007 from quest
No mail.
zeta12:~>

PuTTYis a free ssh windows application. Please read the PuTTY user agreement carefully and check for updates (you can also download the source code) at http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/. The page also provides a download for PuTTY scp (pscp) which is a command line secure copy. WinSCP is a GUI version of pscp, it can be used to securely transfer files (secure-ftp) to the SCS network. You can check the WinSCP Homepage for an up-to-date version of WinSCP and for detailed documentation about the product.

When you run PuTTY ssh it can be used to connect to quest by simply supplying the Host_Name as 'quest.scs.carleton.ca', selecting ssh on port 22, and then clicking on OPEN:

WinSCP is a secure-ftp client that can be used to copy files to and from the SCS Unix Network. It looks similar to a file manager or an ftp client (see below). You must supply 'quest.scs.carleton.ca' as the hostname and enter your username and password to the remote host.