Public Login Servers

TIG maintains a public login server, login.csail.mit.edu, for the convenience of the community. The system runs Ubuntu 14.04LTS and provides access to the CSAIL AFS cell for accessing your directory space or managing your personal web page or your group's web hosting.

Accessing these servers

You must have a CSAIL Kerberos principal.

• From GNU/Linux and other unix-based systems (eg, Mac OS, *BSD, ...), insert your username for YOU in ssh YOU@login.csail.mit.edu
  • For repeated access, we recommend installing Kerberos (for Linux / for Mac OS).
• From Windows systems, use PuTTY
  • For repeated access, we recommend configuring PuTTY with Kerberos?.

SSH RSA/DSA/ECDSA fingerprints

If your ssh client is configured for Kerberos ("repeated access" above), it will automatically verify the identity of the server you're connecting to using its Kerberos key. If not, and you wish to manually verify the RSA/DSA key of l=login=, you can download a PGP-signed text file with all of the key fingerprints.

Notes

For continuous connections to login.csail.mit.edu, Kerberos tickets and the AFS tokens that depend on them will expire every 10 hours. Run renew to obtain new credentials. After they expire, your session will remain open, but you will have very little access to files (as "system:anyuser", the AFS equivalent of "nobody".)

Many standard packages are available on these systems. Some packages can be added to your environment using DotSoftware; if you still don't see what you're looking for, contact TIG.