Alternative Programs to Log in from Windows

Owned by Cristian Di Pietrantonio
Last updated: Jun 17, 2022

When working within a Windows environment, there are alternative solutions to connecting to Pawsey's supercomputing resources. Some recommended software include MobaXterm, PuTTY and Cygwin.

On this page:


MobaXterm

A popular alternative client for Windows users is MobaXterm, which includes an integrated X server with SSH client to run graphical applications on supercomputers. When downloading MobaXterm Home Edition, please refer to the End User Licence Agreement.

If you do not have administrative rights on your Windows machine, opt for the portable edition. If you do have admin rights, you can choose the "Installer edition" (recommended).

Double-click the downloaded Microsoft Installer file (.msi), and the Windows wizard will automatically guide you through the installation process.

Make sure to check whether Windows Firewall hasn't blocked any features of this program after installation. 


Recommended Settings for MobaXterm

Once installed, start MobaXterm and provide the Pawsey recommended the SSH settings as follows:

  1. Select Settings → Configuration from the menu.


    Figure 1. MobaXterm configuration settings

  2. Click the Enable graphical SSH-browser option to disable. If selected, this would create an unnecessary graphical connection to the remote host.
  3. Leave X11-Forwarding enabled. The -X flag for the SSH command will not be required when if X-11 forwarding is enabled.

Basic SSH Connection using MobaXterm

MobaXterm allows for a terminal session to be used for basic SSH connection as per Logging in with ssh page.

To be able to start a local terminal (since version 8), you need to download and install the CygUtils.plugin package from http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/plugins.html. Move the downloaded file into the same directory as the MobaXterm executable, for example, "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mobatek\MobaXterm Personal Edition", and then restart MobaXterm.

  1. Click session 

    Figure 2. Session settings

  2. Select Shell from the Session settings dialog box
  3. Click OK. You will be presented with a local terminal prompt
  4. Use SSH to log in using your Pawsey user account credentials


    Figure 3. Log in to a system using SSH from a terminal session


Putty

PuTTY is a free client and available for all recent versions of Windows. It can be downloaded and installed following the instructions on the PuTTY download page, provided you have the appropriate permissions for your computer. Otherwise, you may need to ask a system administrator to complete the installation for you.

More information: https://www.putty.org

Cygwin

Cygwin provides a Linux environment within Windows and can also be used to log in into Pawsey systems. It is a port of many applications to Windows, including ssh and X, and is available from the following link: http://www.cygwin.com

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