HISP Shell Server

HISP has a shell server thats used for hosting the Subversion repositories, mailing lists and most of our services. If you are a developer on a HISP project you will get access to this machine. You are free to make your own home page and have personal Subversion repositories there.

You are required to change your password on the shell server as soon as possible. This is required for the safety of the server.

Shell Server FAQ

How can I change my password on the shell server?

After logging in to the server type:

$ passwd
Changing password for trygvis
(current) UNIX password: <<type your existing password>>
Enter new UNIX password: <<type your new password>>
Retype new UNIX password: <<type your new password again>>

How can I make a home page?

Make a public folder in your home dir called public_html like this:

$ mkdir ~/public_html
$ chmod a+rx ~/public_html

You should now be able to point your browser to

http://www.hisp.info/~<username>

and see a directory listing.

What is a SSH key?

SSH keys are a more elegant way of using SSH. By using SSH keys you won't have to enter your password all the time while using SSH services like subversion or when logging in into the shell server.

How do I install a SSH key?

This depends on which client you are using. Most Linux distributions comes with OpenSSH preinstalled. If you are using Cygwin you must make sure the "openssh" package is installed.

There is a common step that all clients has to do and that is to make the ~/.ssh folder on the server:

$ ssh login.hisp.info
$ mkdir ~/.ssh
$ chmod 755 ~/.ssh

OpenSSH

To generate a new key pair (a public and a private part) type this on your client machine:

- $ ssh-keygen -t rsa

This will generate two files in your home directory:

~/.ssh/id_rsa - This is the private part of the key. Do not share this with anyone.
~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub - This is the public part of the key. You can distribute this key as much as you like.

Now upload the public part to the server:

- $ scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub login.hisp.info:

The last step is to add the key to your keyring on the server:

- $ ssh login.hisp.info
- $ cat id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

You can have as many keys in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys as you like. If this does not work, you can try generating keys of type dsa with the following command, and then repeat the subsequent steps:

- $ ssh-keygen -t dsa

Putty

Download the putty suite
Install in C:\Tools\Putty

Open putty.exe and setup a connection to the linux-server you wish to log onto (e.g. login.ifi.uio.no) and save the session as e.g. MyConnection
Open the connection and log on with username and password
When logged on, type the following comammands:
```
$ssh-keygen \-b 1024 \-t dsa \-N passphrase \-f mykey
```
(NOTE: change passphrase to a secret keyword you only know)
```
$ls \-l mykey\*
```
You just created a SSH2 DSA key with 1024 bit key phrase. In the list you will see two files. One named "mykey" and one named "mykey.pub". As you might guess, the .pub file is the public key file, the other is the private one
Type:
```
$mkdir .ssh
```
Then go to the directory where you created your keys and copy the public key to the .ssh userfolder with the following command:
```
$cp mykey.pub /home/myuser/.ssh/authorized_keys
```

Please pay attention to the filename, it really must be "authorized_keys". In some old OpenSSH implementations, it was "authorized_keys2".

Now download the private key (mykey) file to your client computer and delete it from the hisp.info server.
In order to use the private key we get from the server, we have to convert it to a putty format. This is because the private key file format is not specified by some standard body. To do this we simple open "puttygen" and open the "conversions" menu and chose "Import Key". Then browse to your file "mykey" which you got from the server enter your provided passphrase upon creation of the key. Finally click "Save private key" and save the file as "mykey.PPK" somewhere on disk.
Now we are ready to use this key for the first time to test the connection. In order to do this, open the program called pageant.exe (on the program menu->Putty->Pageant) and on the lower right taskbar you will se a new icon, a computer with a black hat on. Right click on the icon and choose add key. Browse and select your mykey.pkk file, make sure the key is added and close. This step must be repeated every time you reboot your computer.
Open the program "putty" and edit (load - make changes - save) the session you already created:
- Session->HostName: Hostname or IP Adress of your server
- Session->Protocol: SSH
- Session->Saved Sessions: MyConnection
- SSH->Prefered SSH Protocol version: 2
- Connection->auto-login username: <YourUsername>
These settings means that you now can open the ssh connection and be logged on automatically without any prompting for username, password or passphrase. I this works when using SSH with putty.exe your configuration should be ok.

ssh.com

Check and extend these steps

ssh.com works almost the same way as OpenSSH but they have another way of naming the files and the file formats are slightly different. You can generate the key on your client a similar command as the OpenSSH version and upload the key. Look in the ssh-keygen man page for instructions on how to convert the file to OpenSSH format.

Where can I log in?

You can log in to the shell server by using SSH to the host login.hisp.info