Access to Linux machines within the Department must be done via the bastion server which is available for external access.

GUI tools

Putty program to access linux machines from Windows. It will be installed on Department provided Windows computers or you can install it from self-service or from here: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/.

Command line tool

Openssh client is now including as standard on Windows 11 follow the Linux SSH

How to access via the bastion server

The current version Putty version 0.83 at the time of publication allows the setup of an ssh proxy using bastion.physics.ox.ac.uk.

1. Expand Session set Port = 22 and Hostname using the Full Qualifying Domain Name(FQDN) of the computer you are connecting to, for example cplxts12.nat.physics.ox.ac.uk. Do NOT set to bastion.physics.ox.ac.uk, this is not a interactive service.
2. Click SSH
3. For debugging set 'Close window on exit' to Never or 'Only on clean exit'
   
4. Expand Connection -> Proxy (Please see the picture below)
5. Proxy type = SSH to Proxy and use Port forward
6. Proxy hostname = bastion.physics.ox.ac.uk Port = 22
7. Print proxy diagnostics in terminal windows = yes if you need the connection debugging otherwise if this works this can be left as No
8. Click Open

 

Troubleshooting

Using ssh in Windows and see the error "Corrupted MAC on input", in the file config in the .ssh subdirectory of your user profile (cd %userprofile% , or cd ~ in powershell, to go to your user profile directory) add the lines

Host * 
    Ciphers aes256-gcm@openssh.com,aes128-gcm@openssh.com,aes256-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes128-ctr 
    MACs hmac-sha2-256-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha2-512-etm@openssh.com,umac-128-etm@openssh.com 
    KexAlgorithms curve25519-sha256,curve25519-sha256@libssh.org,diffie-hellman-group16-sha512,diffie-hellman-group18-sha512,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256