How To Login Remotely
Methods for Accessing Your Account Remotely
SSH
The support team recommends that users connect to servers in the School using SSH as this provides the greatest level of functionality and security.
SSH provides the functionality of both telnet and FTP but with increased security. The SSH client available for download in the School includes a terminal emulator and a graphical, drag-and-drop file transfer utility.
- We have a site licence for the Windows SSH client software which users can download and install on their home PC. For more information about installing and using SSH at home see our Guide to SSH.
- The PuTTY ssh client is also available for download at the PuTTY website. For more information about using PuTTY at home see our Guide to PuTTY
Which SoCS Servers are available via SSH?
The table below lists the School servers that support SSH connections and which groups can use them.
| SSH Server | Taught Students | Staff / PhD Students |
| Teaching Compute Servers
tinky-winky.cs.bham.ac.uk |
Yes | Yes |
| Research Compute Servers
preston.cs.bham.ac.uk wallace.cs.bham.ac.uk gromit.cs.bham.ac.uk |
No | Yes |
Additional Connection Methods
FTP
Please note that use of FTP is essentially deprecated due to security concerns. Occasional use of anonymous ftp occurs when no other viable transfer mechanism is available.
There are a wide range of FTP clients available for all platforms. While the functionality of these clients is the same, they differ in their ease of use. Windows provides a basic command line client (ftp) and there are numerous graphical, drag-and-drop shareware/public domain clients available.
Anonymous FTP
Connecting to our FTP server and authenticating with your username and password allows you to transfer files to/from your account. (NB. Your username / password is not encrypted.) In addition, an anonymous FTP service is available for downloading resources such as course material, technical reports, software, etc ... To use the anonymous FTP service the login is anonymous and the password is your email address.