SSH
Secure SHell (SSH) is both a program and an encrypted remote access network protocol commonly used to access CSE login servers.
It is also the most common transport mechanism used with rsync.
SSH allows users to access remote computers using a secure, encrypted network connection. Very commonly in CSE, users will access our login servers using SSH. Once connected via SSH the users can run any command-line program or utility — such as compilers, text editors, debuggers, etc.
More advanced users can take advantage of SSH's X11 forwarding so that they can run a program with a graphical interface on a CSE login server and have the program's window(s) appear on the user's own computer instead.
Absent any other setup when SSH is run to connect to a CSE host this remote host will require the user to authenticate with a password… which quickly becomes tiresome when you keep having to type in your password every time you connect.
authorized_keys
SSH supports a private/public key pair that you can generate using the ssh-keygen program. When the public component of the pair is stored in the user's home directory under .ssh/authorized_keys file at CSE, the user can then use the private key component to authenticate future connections without needing to enter their password each time[1].
See also
- Secure SHell @ Wikipedia
man ssh
Footnotes
- ↑ In this case the private key component is typically stored in the
.sshsubdirectory of their home directory on their home/local/non-CSE Linux computer.