Remote access to the UCSB computing labs (and some SSH tricks)

Note: Unless otherwise denoted, all commands are the same for Windows, Linux, and MacOS.

First time setup

• Create a College of Engineering (CoE) account at this link: https://eci.ucsb.edu/account-creation-links
• If you have any issues with your account or if you forget your password, go back to the link above.

Logging in thorough SSH

(This section assumes you have some experience using Powershell/the terminal/the command line.)

1. Log in with ssh <your COE username>@csil.cs.ucsb.edu.
2. You will be prompted for your password - this is your CoE password created above.

Adding a public/private key pair for CSIL

Adding a key pair allows you to avoid entering a password every time you log in to CSIL.

1. Create a key pair with ssh-keygen.
2. Follow the prompts to save the keypair and add a password to the file (not required if you're on a personal computer, recommended on a shared computer).
3. Navigate to the location of the keypair and copy ONLY the public key to CSIL using the command scp <path/to/file> <COE username>@csil.cs.ucsb.edu:~/.ssh/authorized_keys
4. Enter your password when prompted.

If all has gone well, you should now be able to log in to CSIL without a password.

note: You can do this on any remote server, just replace <COE username> with your username on that server and "csil.cs.ucsb.edu" with the public IP for that server.

Adding an alias for CSIL

If you want to type even less, try setting up an alias for CSIL:

1. Open/create a file named config in the SSH folder.
2. Linux or Mac: Located at ~.ssh/config
3. Windows: Located at %userprofile%\.ssh\config
4. Add to the file:

Host <nickname>
Hostname csil.cs.ucsb.edu
User <your COE username>
IdentityFile <path to your private key>

note: You can do this multiple times to add additional servers!

1. Save the file.

2. Test it by running ssh <nickname> on the command line. You should now be connected to CSIL.

Connecting to CSIL using VS Code

Microsoft has a tutorial for remote development here. I will also summarize here the key points:

1. Install the Remote-SSH extension in VS Code.
2. Open the command palette (F1 or CTRL+Shift+P) and select Remote-SSH: Connect To Host...
3. Use the same ssh command as above (ssh <nickname> or ssh <COE username>@csil.cs.ucsb.edu)

Help! My CSIL userspace is running out of space when I use VS Code!

Warning: Double check your paths when using these commands!

This is a known issue with VS Code. To fix this, navigate to your home folder on CSIL (cd ~) and run ls -a. If you see .vscode-server, run rm -rf ~/.vscode-server. Ensure that the path is correct before running! rm -rf forces (-f) removal of all files in that path recursively (-r)! All files within this folder will be permanently deleted!

Next time you connect to CSIL with VS Code, it will reinitialize the .vscode-server folder, but it should be significantly smaller this time.