Secure Shell

Access to the front-end nodes is provided through the secure shell (ssh) protocol. SSH supports a variety of use cases, including terminal emulation, X11 forwarding, and file transfer.

Most POSIX-like operating systems (including Mac OS X) provide command-line ssh clients. PuTTY is a popular implementation for the Windows operating system.

ssh <username>@shaheen.hpc.kaust.edu.sa

SSH can be used to transfer files between your local environment and the Supercomputing Laboratory. For example, the sftp command provides an interface similar to a traditional FTP client.

sftp <username>@shaheen.hpc.kaust.edu.sa 

For security purposes, Shaheen logins require Two Factor Authentication. In addition to your initial password/passphrase step, you will also be prompted to enter a unique six digit one-time password (OTP). Details on how to set up Two Factor Authentication can be found at https://www.hpc.kaust.edu.sa/content/two-factor-authentication-shaheen.

Mounting a Remote filesystem locally using sshfs

SSHFS allows any user to remotely mount their Shaheen home directory onto a local workstation through an ssh connection.

( mkdir -p ~/ksl &&
 sshfs ${user}@shaheen.hpc.kaust.edu.sa: ~/ksl )

Instructions for using sshfs on Fedora are available at http://fedorasolved.org/server-solutions/sshfs.

SSHFS can be installed on OS X using MacPorts. Alternatively, a binary package is available at http://pqrs.org/macosx/sshfs/.