Connecting to Narvi

All access to Narvi is via Secure Shell (ssh).

You can connect to narvi.tut.fi from everywhere with your private ssh-key.

Note

Are you here for a SciComp KickStart course? You just need to make sure you have an account and then be able to connect via ssh (first section here), and you don’t need to worry about the graphical application parts. Everything else, will be discussed during course.

Note

Narvi uses Tuni accounts, but since we don’t use passwords, account needs to activated first and you need to provide your public ssh-key as instructed at accounts

See also

The shell crash course is a kind of prerequisite to this material.

Connecting via ssh

Linux

All Linux distributions come with an ssh client, so you don’t need to do anything. To use graphical applications, use the standard -X option, nothing extra is needed.:

ssh narvi.tut.fi
# OR, if your username is different from local machine:
ssh username@narvi.tut.fi

Mac

ssh is installed by default, same as Linux. Run it from a terminal, same command as Linux. To run graphical applications, you need to install an X server (XQuartz).

Windows

You need to install a ssh client yourself: PuTTY is the standard one. If you want to run graphical programs, you need an X server on Windows: see this link for some hints. (Side note: putty dot org is an advertisement site trying to get you to install something else.)

You should configure this with the hostname, username, and save the settings so that you can connect quickly.

Nowadays with new Windows 10 builds you can also use its native openssh, so most of linux example’s commands work out of box e.g. ssh-keygen and ssh. If you want still better linux compatibility, you could install WSL (=Windows Subsystem for Linux), which has about anything normal linux shell apart from kernel-services.

Advanced options

See the advanced ssh information to learn how to log in without a password, automatically save your username and more. It really will save you time.

ssh is one of the most fundamental Linux programs: by using it well, you can really do almost anything from anywhere. The .ssh/config file is valuable to set up. If ssh is annoying to use, ask for some help in getting it working well.

Exercise

  1. Connect to Narvi. List your home directory and work directory $WRKDIR.
  2. Check the uptime and load of the login node: uptime and htop (q to quit). What else can you learn about the node?
  3. Check what your default shell is: echo $SHELL. Go ahead and change your shell to bash if it’s not yet (see below).

What’s next?

The next tutorial is about software and modules.