Login Services

login.physics.gla.ac.uk

Access to PPE machines from outside the PPE network is via login.physics.gla.ac.uk using your departmental unix account. Currently access to login.physics.gla.ac.uk is granted by request only, contact Faculty IT if you wish to use login.physics.gla.ac.uk.

An ssh client is then required to access login.physics.gla.ac.uk (e.g PuTTY for Windows; and the ssh command on linux etc. desktops). PuTTY does not need to be administratively installed in Windows: you could write a copy onto a USB stick or a floppy disk, and take it with you in case the distant machine does not have it already.

If the only facility to which you have access at the distant host is a web browser (Java-capable), then the "MindTerm Applet" can be used by browsing to http://login.physics.gla.ac.uk/ - although this offers a viable interactive terminal window, it doesn't allow many of the other features of ssh to be utilised, such as X forwarding, so it is only mentioned as a fallback option.

For forwarding X windows through login.physics.gla.ac.uk see ExtXWindows.

PPELX

After logging into login.physics.gla.ac.uk ppe users can then ssh into any ppe desktop machine or into the ppelx group of machines. There are currently two groups of ppelx machines both running Scientific Linux 4, one group running in 32 bit mode the other in 64 bit mode:

• ppelx.physics.gla.ac.uk - Scientific Linux 4, 32 bit
• ppelx64sl4.physics.gla.ac.uk - Scientific Linux 4, 64 bit

Avoiding the copying double hop

As the ppe linux machines are not directly accessible from outside copying files to the ppe systems from outside would seem to require first copying a file to login.physics.gla.ac.uk then logging into login.physics.gla.ac.uk to copy the file to the ppe systems. From a linux system this double hop can be avoided using by using a wrapper script to scp and some ssh configuration options.

First download the wrapper script: https://twiki.ppe.gla.ac.uk/pub/IT/LoginServices/rscp, and ensure the script is executable my doing chmod +x rscp after down load. Then add into your ~/.ssh/config file (on the remote none ppe system):

Host login.physics.gla.ac.uk
     HostName login.physics.gla.ac.uk
     LocalForward 20001 ppelx:22

If you do not have a ~/.ssh/config create it with the above text and then ensure the correct files permissions by doing chmod 0600 ~/.ssh/config.

To use the script first ssh into login.physics.gla.ac.uk then in another window on the remote machine to (for example) copy files called f1 and f2 to your home directory on ppelx do, rscp file1 file2 ppelx:~/ on the remote machine or to recursively copy a directory called dir1to your home directory on ppelx use rscp -r dir1 ppelx:~/.

lf1

lf1 runs Fermi Scientific LINUX 305 and is provided for local CDF collaborators only. Its configuration is very similar to that of a desktop, but unlike desktops it does not have any additional RPMs from outside its installation tree.

-- AndrewPickford - 03 Dec 2008