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Terminal Setup

Prerequisite

Before you can start submitting work you will need some way of connecting to the NeSI clusters.

This page will cover establishing an SSH (Secure SHell) connection, giving you access to a command line interface (bash) on the cluster.

In order to set up such a connection, you will need a suitable Terminal program. The best option for you depends on your operating system and level of experience.

Linux or Mac OS

Terminal

On MacOS or Linux you will already have a terminal emulator installed, usually called, "Terminal." To find it, simply search for "terminal".
Congratulations! You are ready to move to the next step.

What next?

Set up your SSH Config

VSCode

The inbuilt 'remotes' plugin allows connecting to remote hosts. If you have set up your ~/.ssh/config as described in SSH Config Setup, VSCode will detect this and show configured hosts in the 'Remote Explorer' Tab. See VSCode for more info.

What next?

Windows

As Windows is not a "Unix-Like" operating system, getting access to a functional terminal requires some additional steps. There are several different options, listed in order of preference.

Ubuntu Terminal (Windows 10)

Note

The Ubuntu Terminal and Windows Subsystem for Linux require administrative privileges to enable and install them. If your institution has not given you such privileges, consider using another option such as MobaXTerm Portable Edition (see below).

This is the most functional replication of a Unix terminal available on Windows, and allows users to follow the same set of instructions given to Mac/Linux users. It may be necessary to enable Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) first.

What next?

VSCode

VSCode can be used with WSL or without.

What next?

MobaXterm

In addition to being a terminal emulator, MobaXterm also includes several useful features like multiplexing, X11 forwarding and a file transfer GUI.

What next?

  • Setting up Connecting

In order to avoid the problems of using a Windows environment, it may be advisable to install a Linux Virtual machine. This may be advantageous in other ways as many elements of scientific computing require a Linux environment, also it can provide a more user friendly place to become familiar with command line use.

There are multiple free options when it comes to VM software. We recommend Oracle VirtualBox.

See instructions on how to set up a virtual machine..

Once you have a working VM you may continue following the instructions as given for Linux/MacOS.

What next?

WinSCP

WinSCP has some advantages over MobaXterm (customisable, cleaner interface, open source), and some disadvantages (no built in X-server, additional authentication step). However, WinSCP setup is more involved than with MobaXterm, therefore we do not recommend it for new users.

What next?

Git Bash

If you are using Git for version control you may already have Git Bash installed. If not it can be downloaded from git-scm.com.

Git Bash is perfectly adequate for testing your login or setting up your password, but lacks many of the features of MobaXterm or a native Unix-Like terminal. Therefore we do not recommend it as your primary terminal.

What next?

Set up your SSH Config

Windows PowerShell

All Windows computers have PowerShell installed, however it will only be useful to you if Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is also enabled, instructions can be found at Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux_WSL.

Like Git Bash, PowerShell is perfectly adequate for testing your login or setting up your password, but lacks many of the features of MobaXterm or a native Unix-Like terminal. Therefore we do not recommend it as your primary terminal.