Connecting to the CS Department from Mac OS X

The following are instructions for connecting to the CS Department from any Mac running OS X with X11 installed. If you are working on an ITS machine, X11 is already installed. If you are working from home and have OS X version 10.3 (Panther), you can download X11 from directly from Apple (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/x11formacosx.html).

1. From the OS X Dock (the toolbar at the bottom at the screen), click on the Applications folder.

2. From the Finder window (the new window that pops open), click on the Utilities folder.

3. Double-click on the X11 application.

X11 will start, and after about 5 seconds, an xterm will appear:

4. You will use ssh to connect to the CS department. To proceed, you need to know your CS username. In this example, user rwas will connect to the CS department; subtitute your CS username into the following command:

ssh -X rwas@lab.cs

You may get a warning message similar to the following:

The authenticity of host 'lime.cs (130.58.68.165)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 73:06:d5:e9:d3:53:6b:41:0c:ee:b9:b2:1c:cc:0d:5c.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

Answer "yes".

Warning: Permanently added 'lime.cs,130.58.68.165' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.

And if the -X doesn't work, try -Y: ssh -Y username@lab.cs.swarthmore.edu

You will then be prompted to enter your CS password (not your ITS password).

You are now connected to the CS department and can run any commands you would normally run from our labs, such as get22, handin22, or drscheme. When you are done, simply type logout in the xterm window.

Note: If you find any mistakes with this page, please contact our sysadmins