How can I connect to the Athena dialup servers?

Effective Thursday, June 13, 2019, Duo two-factor authentication is now required to access athena.dialup.mit.edu via secure shell (SSH) or secure file transfer (SFTP/SCP).

The primary method of connecting to the dialups is via a Secure Shell (SSH) client. SSH ensures that your password and login session are encrypted. You will need to authenticate to the SSH client, either by providing Kerberos tickets or typing your password.

Note that the instructions here will simply get you a terminal (tty) login session. You will be able to run applications which normally run entirely inside the "Terminal" window on an Athena workstation. You will not be able to run programs that spawn other windows, such as MATLAB, Evolution, Firefox, Acrobat Reader, etc. For information on running such programs on the dialups, please see our stock answer entitled [archive:How can I run X Windows applications on the dialups?]

Connecting to the dialups

• from another Athena workstation:

  athena% ssh -K athena.dialup.mit.edu

  You will probably not be prompted for your password, as you likely have Kerberos tickets from your current login session.

• from a web browser:

  Visit https://athena.dialup.mit.edu, where you can use a web-based SSH client to access the dialup servers. While this method requires no configuration, the web-based SSH client may not have some advanced terminal features.

• from a Windows machine:

  Download the SecureCRT ssh client. It comes pre-configured with a profile called "Athena". Simply double-click on it and enter your password when prompted.

  If you're using a different SSH client, you can configure it to connect to athena.dialup.mit.edu.

  Traveling? If can't obtain a certificate to download SecureCRT, or can't install SecureCRT on the computer you're using, you can use any SSH client. Though IS&T is unable to provide support for other SSH clients, many members of the MIT Community use PuTTY, a free SSH client for Windows. It comes in a standalone version (putty.exe), which does not require installation or administrative privileges to use.

• from a Mac OS X machine:

  Download Fetch or open the "Terminal" application, which can be found in /Applications/Utilities. At the terminal prompt, type: ssh username@athena.dialup.mit.edu and replace username with your Athena username

  If you have installed the MIT Kerberos Extras package, from http://web.mit.edu/software/ and have valid Kerberos tickets, you will not be prompted for your password.

See Also

• Debathena Landing Page