Shell
Frequently asked questions related to our shell services
How do I get a CSE shell account?
To get a new shell account please contact technical support and give your real name, your affiliation to CSE, your preferred username, and your SSH public key.
How do I access my shell account?
At CSE we use unix-based systems to offer shell services. To access these services you need an SSH client. Most unix-based workstations have an SSH client installed by default. On OSX, Linux, and BSD this client is usually installed automatically by default.
For Ubuntu and Debian you must install the SSH client manually. In a console type sudo apt-get install ssh-client to install the client.
For Windows you must install the SSH client manually. We recommend and support the PuTTY SSH client only on Windows. To install PuTTY, download and install it.
Once your client is installed you can generate a public/private key pair and connect to the shell server at shell.cse.ucdavis.edu port 22.
Why do I keep getting prompted for my passphrase?
OK so you've got public-key authentication working because you are being asked for a passphrase instead of a password, great! Now all you have to do is get your key agent working. Most systems will do this automatically but with some you may have to set this up on a user-by-user basis. Try placing the following in your one of your initialization scripts (like ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile).
$ eval `ssh-agent`
$ ssh-add
# if you did not accept the ssh-keygen defaults:
$ ssh-add <private key file>
If all goes well, your SSH commands in this shell have access to your key without further intervention from you.
How do I list the public keys I am currently using?
$ ssh-add -l
2048 f4:e3:56:73:c2:78:23:0b:b9:b2:30:a1:ba:12:55:00 ~/.ssh/id_rsa (RSA)
2048 23:0b:b9:b2:30:a1:ef:dd:b5:1c:16:ca:4b:a4:04:14 ~/.ssh/id_dsa (DSA)
How do I setup X to only ask for my passphrase once per local login?
If you are using gnome add the following to your ~/.xsession file.
$ cat .xsession
eval `ssh-agent`
ssh-add
gnome-session
$