SSH and Secure File Transfer

FTP and Telnet are insecure ways of accessing remote systems on the network. Hackers can snip the data passed between computers during FTP/Telnet connection. In particular, they can read a user's password when he logs onto a remote system. Hackers steal such password information to log on to the remote system, then launch further attacks on the Internet under a false identity.

In order to protect data, you are recommended to use a secure way for transfering data called SSH (Secure Shell). SSH is designed as a replacement for Telnet and is the standard for secure file transfer and remote logins over the internet. All network traffic is encrypted and optionally compressed, providing strong authentication measures and secure communications.

You are advised to use SSH client program to access the following Computer Centre remote systems::

Pre-requisites:

If connecting from outside the HKU campus network, staff and students are required to login HKUVPN. Refer to

http://www.itservices.hku.hk/home/networks/vpn.htm

If connecting within the HKU campus network, HKUVPN login is not required.

Configuration Procedures:

The following are procedures on how to make SSH/SFTP connection:

• SSH (Secure Shell) with Putty - for running commands on remote system
  
  
• SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) with CoreFTP - for uploading/downloading files to/from remote system
  
  
• SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) with Adobe Dreamweaver - for uploading/downloading web pages to/from remote system
  
  
• SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) with FileZilla for Mac OS X - for uploading/downloading web pages to/from remote system