P82-Solaris10 ssh/scp/sftp & X-windows

I/A v8.3 brought the UNIX P82 to the mesh network along with Solaris 10 and added security.

All Solaris 10 workstations’ remote access services use encryption. Because the following services do not use encryption and are not secure, they are disabled on Solaris 10 workstations: ♦ Telnet ♦ FTP ♦ Shell. Instead, the Secure Shell protocol (SSH/SCP) is enabled. All secure access to the Solaris 10 workstation will use SSH/SCP

Lets say I have a P82 connected to my LAN that has IP=192.168.2.100

To use ssh instead of telnet/rlogin example:

  ssh -l fox 192.168.2.100

Option -l is used to pass in the USERNAME that you want to connect as. The P82 has a user “fox” enabled from the Day-0.

If you want the P82 to serve X-Windows to your client (Linux/Exceed/etc) you need to set the X-Window tunnelling when you connect:

  ssh -X -l fox 192.168.2.100

No more need to set the “DISPLAY” env variable if you use the “-X” option. Then just kick off an X-Application and it will come to your station. ( Try something easy like: /usr/openwin/bin/xcalc )

The -X option enables X11 forwarding and automatically sets the DISPLAY env variable to localhost:10.0 (1st ssh in) or localhost:11.0 etc.. For each subsequent ssh login.

There is also another option -v that shows all the verbose authentication that goes on using ssh (nice for debugging ssh authentication stuff)

Using this method I can then run my local X-Server LINUX box with the more secure “-nolisten tcp” option and enjoy being served X-FoxView from my spanky new Solaris10 box.

In /opt/ia I copied the .profile to go_fv

Remarked out all the usual stuff including the REM_STATION, DISPLAY and the if -z $REM_STATION exit stuff

Then I added this:

  DISPLAY=`env|grep DISPLAY | awk -F: 'print{print $1}'` 

  if [ "$DISPLAY" = "DISPLAY=localhost" ]
  then 
   echo "Using ssh X11 forwarding ..."
  else 
   echo "Be sure to login using \"ssh -X\" to enable X11 forwarding"
   exit
  fi

There is also a -C option for compressing the network packets that works great for slow dial-up connections:

  ssh -C -X -l fox 192.168.2.100

For more info on SSH & X-Windows have a look at this link: http://www.vanemery.com/Linux/XoverSSH/X-over-SSH2.html

If you want to connect from a Windoze box you will need to get a ssh client Have a look at this article: http://www.jfitz.com/tips/ssh_for_windows.html

Instead of ftp you will need sftp (this is the ssh version of ftp)

  sftp fox@192.168.2.100 
  password: 
  sftp> pwd 
  Remote working directory: /usr/users/fox

Comes standard with modern version of Solaris/Linux however on Windoze boxes you will need to get a client.

A nice GNU windows version is WinSCP available for download from: http://winscp.net

Instead of rcp use scp

For example say I know I have a file called FILE.txt in /usr/users/fox/ I can copy it to the current directory I am in by issuing:

  scp fox@192.168.2.100:FILE.txt .

or I can send a file called SENDTHIS.txt to /usr/users/fox/ on my P82 by issuing:

  scp SENDTHIS.txt fox@192.168.2.100:
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