Rocky Access SSH

SSH Software

On Linux or Mac, the OpenSSH command-line utilities are generally installed by default.

As of Windows 10, Microsoft has made available the Terminal app with OpenSSH tools to install.
As of Windows 11, the terminal app and tools are installed by default.
With the terminal app, all the commands in this document work but referencing files and paths will be slightly different.

Generate Key Pair

SEE IN ACTION

Open a terminal and type the following command:

ssh-keygen

You will be prompted where to save your private key. Just hitting enter will save it to the default location. You will also be prompted to enter a password. This password will be required to use your private key in the future.

Default Private Key Location	~/.ssh/id_rsa
Default Public Key Location	~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Assuming default location, output your public key with the following command:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Keep your private key file and contents safe and do not share them.

Connecting to Rocky

SEE IN ACTION

To connect to a Rocky shell you will use the ssh command on the edge node: rocky.nimbios.org

The format for the ssh command is:

ssh -i <myprivatekeyfile> <username>@<hostname>

If you set a password on your private key, you will be prompted for it.

If your private key file is in the default location, the ssh utilities will know to look there for it making the command just the following:

ssh <username>@<hostname>

Upload/Download Files

SEE IT IN ACTION

To copy files from remote systems through SCP we use the scp command. It is very much like the cp command except you can specify remote machines as the source or destination of the file.

scp -i <myprivatekeyfile> <from> <to>

To specify a remote location, you would use the format

<username>@<hostname>:[filename]

The colon is required. If you leave newfilename blank then it will default to the same filename given in the other parameters.

For example, if you are test_user and you want to copy a file on your local machine named localfile to your home directory on Rocky you could do the following:

scp localfile test_user@rocky.nimbios.org:

Leaving the filename part blank after the colon means to use the same filename.

Likewise, to copy a file named rockyfile from your Rocky home directory to your local machine:

scp test_user@rocky.nimbios.org:rockyfile .

In this case, using a . means copy it to the current directory.