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Prerequisites
This guide assumes that you are comfortable with Mac OS X, but have no experience with accessing Linux systems. If you are already familiar with this process, feel free to skip ahead. You can find a list of machines here.
If you are a little new to or rusty with your Mac, please consider first reading a book or two to get you started. We recommend Mac OS X Tiger for Dummies.
In order to connect to the CSCS network, you must first pick a target computer. A list of the lab computers can be found here. Once you've picked your machine, keep the name handy, as we'll be using it again soon.
Console
In order to connect to your CSCS account, you will need to open a console. The console (''also known as Terminal, in some distributions) is accessible by:
- Open up a finder window
- Click Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
(note: if applications is not under "places" in your finder window, you can open a finder window, go to the top tool bar, and click go -> applications)
A window will pop up with a command line prompt, similar to the terminal windows on the CSCS computers.
Mac uses the same command processor ("command shell"), bash, as does RedHat on the CSCS computers,
so you can use all the same commands to make directories, copy or move files, etc.
(If you cannot find the console for your distribution, please reference your documentation or contact the admins for help.)
Connecting
Connecting to your CSCS account is as simple as typing the following on your console:
ssh yourusername@target_computer.cscs.lsa.umich.edu
substituting your CSCS login for "yourusername" and the name of some CSCS computer for "target_computer". For example:
ssh joegreen@puma.cscs.lsa.umich.edu
where joegreen is the user login account.
The first time you connect, you may see a message such as the following:
The authenticity of host 'puma.cscs.lsa.umich.edu (141.211.189.56)' can't be established.
DSA key fingerprint is 71:fb:bb:c2:d9:a0:69:50:84:5c:3c:4e:3a:ba:fd:43.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?
you can type "yes".
Congratulations! You're now logged in to a CSCS computer. You can enter all the
commands you would enter if you were sitting at a console in the CSCS lab to access your files,
compile programs, etc. However---see the next section for steps you must take to have GUI's (graphical user interfaces) from the (remote) CSCS computer display on your (local) machine.
Remote Use of a Graphical User Interface
If you would like to use X11 tunneling (which means all graphics from the CSCS machines will display on your machine), install XCode from the OSX disk that (perhaps) came with your Mac. You can also get XCode from this site:
Note you have to sign up for free apple developer connection to get the installer for XCode.
As a third alternative, we have copies of XCode at the CSCS lab which you can copy there.
In any case, after you have installed XCode, X11 would then be accessible via:
- Open a finder window
- Applications -> Utilities -> X11
which will bring up a console (terminal) window, into which you can
enter an ssh command like this:
ssh -Y yourusername@target_computer.cscs.lsa.umich.edu
For example,
ssh joegreen@puma.cscs.lsa.umich.edu
where joegreen is the user login account.
After you have logged in to the CSCS computer (puma in the example above), try typing the following command and see if it worked:
If you have things installed correctly, an emacs window should pop up.
Last but not least, make sure that you have gone over the CSCS Conditions of Usage and the Lab Info. You will be held to these standards, so please be aware of them.
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