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Login via Terminal

On Linux and macOS, you can log in to Nimbus by opening a shell on your computer's default terminal.

What you need

  1. The private keypair file that was created in the Nimbus Dashboard for your instance
    1. It is best practice to save the private keypair file to the ~/.ssh location in your local host

    2. If you downloaded it to your Downloads folder, you can use these commands

      mv ~/Downloads/My_Key_Pair.pem ~/.ssh/My_Key_Pair.pem
chmod 700 ~/.ssh/My_Key_Pair.pem ##this creates the right permissions for the private keypair

  2. The login_name, which is the Linux OS image you chose:

    Ubuntuubuntu
    Centoscentos
    Fedorafedora
    Scientific Linuxroot
    Debiandebian
  3. The floating IP that you allocated to your Nimbus instance, e.g. ###.###.##.## 

SSH Login on the terminal

ssh –i ~/.ssh/My_Key_Pair.pem login_name@###.###.##.##

Login via Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a free and open source code editing software that can be deployed on Linux, macOS and Windows. It has an integrated terminal within its user interface that removes the need to switch between command-line tasks and code editing. The default terminal shell is bash on Linux and macOS, and PowerShell on Windows. *For Windows users to configure the default terminal shell to bash, an installation of Git from https://git-scm.com/downloads is required before installation of Visual Studio Code.

You can download Visual Studio Code from the following link: https://code.visualstudio.com.

To log in to Nimbus, follow the instructions as per above.

Recommended settings in Visual Studio Code

Although the integrated terminal on visual studio code can be used directly to SSH log in to Pawsey systems, a useful feature of Visual Studio Code is the Remote Development extension pack that is easily installed from the Marketplace within the application. It allows the ability to open remote directories and text files on Visual Studio Code for in-app code editing and building.

Once installed, connect to Pawsey systems as follows:

  • Click on the green button in the bottom left corner of the screen and select the first option "Remote-SSH: Connect to Host..."

  • Select "+ Add New SSH Host..."

  • Log in using your Nimbus keypair and floating IP address, e.g. ssh -i ~/.ssh/My_Key_Pair.pem ubuntu@###.###.##.##

  • Save the host details in the default config file, e.g. /Users/yourcomputername/.ssh/config

  • Once the host details is saved, you can click on "Connect", a prompt appears for you to enter your Pawsey password. 

  • Finally a new window with the integrated terminal will open and you will see in the bottom left corner that you are connected to the remote host.

  • Note: To use code editing interactively, use the command "code" to open and edit text files from your remote directories, e.g. typing the command code sample.txt will open the <sample.txt> file within Visual Studio Code.


Login via Windows with PuTTY

What you need

  1. Your instance’s IP address -> get this from the instance overview in your dashboard ###.###.###.###

  2. Your login_name -> this depends on the name of the Linux OS image you selected

    Login names:

    | Ubuntu | ubuntu |

    | Debian | debian |

    | Fedora/Centos/Scientific Linux | fedora/centos/root |

  3. The location and name of your private key pair, for eg "MyKeyPair.ppk". If you have not yet generated your Putty private key, follow these steps:
  • Open PuTTYgen (All Apps -> Putty -> Puttygen)
  • Click on the LOAD button.
  • Select the .pem file you downloaded from the Nimbus Dashboard. If you cannot see your .pem file , select "All Files" instead of "Putty Private Key Files" from the dropdown bottom menu.
  • Set a new passphrase and confirm it for your private key.
  • Click on the "Save private key" button and give it the name you prefer.

Steps to log in

1) Open Putty

2) Under "Host name (or IP address)" put: login_name@###.###.###.###

3) In the menu on the left, expand "SSH" and click on "Auth".

4) Under the section "Authentication parameters" click on "Browse...".

5) Select your previously create .ppk private key.

6) Click on "Open" to start the connection to your instance.


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