PuTTY is a free SSH client available from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html From that page you can download either just the putty.exe program or a full set of SSH utilities including file transfer and key generation. Note that PuTTYtel will not work to connect to the CS department, as we do not support telnet connections.
When you launch the PuTTY.exe program, it shows a configuration screen with many options. However, most of them can be left at their defaults. To connect to a CS department computer, enter the fully qualified domain name (example: newyork.cs.rit.edu) in the text box labeled "Host Name (or IP address)". You can then click the "Open" button to connect. The first time you connect to a host, it will display a security alert. You can usually click "Yes" and it will remember the host key and not prompt the next time you connect (see below for more details). After it connects, it will prompt for your username and password.
When connecting to a host for the first time or for the first time after a host's SSH keys (these are not your personal keys, but the keypair that identifies a particular computer system) have been rebuilt, you will be prompted with a message similar to:
The server's host key is not cached in the registry. You have no guarantee that the server is the computer you think it is. The server's rsa2 key fingerprint is: ssh-rsa 1024 03:90:56:97:64:e4:e3:24:12:ed:f8:a8:7e:04:1f:46 If you trust this host, hit Yes to add the key to PuTTY's cache and carry on connecting. If you want to carry on connecting just once, without adding the key to the cache, hit No. If you do not trust this host, hit Cancel to abandon the connection.
In general it is perfectly safe to hit Yes at this prompt. If you know the SSH keys on a host have not changed (this is most applicable to users running Unix at home) but you are being prompted with a message similar to the above, please contact the Admins immediately.
To avoid having to type in a host and your user name every time, you can save the settings as a session. To do so, enter in a host name and set any additional settings (such as username under the "Connection/Data" category), then enter a name under "Saved Sessions" (in the main "Session" category) and press "Save". From then on, you can simply double-click the session name in the list to connect to that machine. You can use the "Load" button to bring up the settings in order to change them and then save them again under the same name or a new one.
PuTTY also comes with a program named PuTTYgen to generate SSH public and private keys. You can use these keys to authenticate instead of using your password.
