Linux/Unix/SSH Guides

1. If off campus, connect to the VPN

2. Download a SSH client, such as PuTTY (or your preferred SSH client of choice)

3. Leave the port as-is, make sure the connection type is set to SSH, and enter the hostname of your machine (likely in the form computername.ece.umn.edu), then click "Open"

4. A window will open for the connection asking for you to log in. Here, type your x500, then press enter, then enter your password. If successful, a SSH session should be opened.

To connect to a departmental Red Hat Linux computer using VNC viewer, you will need to complete these steps (Skip steps 2-12 if using Red Hat 6)

1. Use SSH to remotely connect to the computer that you wish to connect with using VNC.

2. Type vncpasswd and create a password for your connection. Ensure that your password is strong (at least 10 characters, using numbers, letters, symbols, and both cases).

3. Navigate to your home directory (use the cd command to do this).

4. Navigate to .vnc from your home directory (use the cd command to do this).

5. Type vi xstartup (this opens the text editor so you can edit the 'xstartup' file)

6. Type i (this enables text editing)

7. Delete the # before "unset SESSION_MANAGER"

8. Delete the # before "exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc"

9. Place a # before the last line and add one additional line so it looks like this:

#twm &

gnome &

10. Press the escape key (this leaves text editing mode)

11. Type :w (this saves the changes you made)

12. Type :q (this quits the text editor)

13. In the terminal, type the following, replacing the "#" with the appropriate number as described below:

vncserver :# -depth 24

The # may be replaced with any number between 1 and 49. The number corresponds to the port number which VNC uses to connect to you. The number corresponds as follows: number 2 would be port 5902. Number 3 would be port 5903. And so forth.

The system is now ready to accept VNC Viewer Client connections. To connect, install VNC Viewer on another computer, type the IP address or name of the server computer, and you will be prompted to enter the password that you created.

ECE researchers are authorized to use several ECE departmentally managed Linux systems to run simulations and use certain engineering and related software. Access is remote to these systems. The following computers are available to researchers and may be accessed via SSH from the University's network.

palomar.ece.umn.edu

prairie.ece.umn.edu

savanna.ece.umn.edu

To see what software is available, run module avail

To load software, run module load

For example, to load synopsys/syn_2013.12, simply type module load synopsys/syn_2013.12

**Note** There may be a license message that appears when running certain programs. This does not mean that the program has failed. In many cases, this is just a warning that the license terms and conditions do apply and that the software can only be used on campus by authorized University personnel. Please proceed and use the program regardless of the message, but if you have further questions, please contact us.